Made the Grade

I can remember when I was a kid there was a program called Book-It. It was a program sponsored by Pizza Hut that rewarded children for reading. Once I read a book I would give a brief description of the book to my teacher and I would get a sticker. After five books I could go to Pizza Hut and get my reward of a free personal pan pizza!! We even got to wear pins on our school uniform anouncing to the rest of the class how many books we had read and how close we were to our free pizza. McDonalds in Seminole County, Florida had for many years a similar deal with elementary school children. The "food prize" program rewarded good grades with a free Happy Meal. McDonalds called the program Made the Grade and advertised on the sleeve of report card envelopes. WHile this was an attempt for McDonalds to encourage children to make good grades the progam came under attack many times in the past until ultimately it has been removed from the schools. With so many overweight and obese Americans, the program came under attack first because it was promoting junk food and junk food diets to a generation that is already more obese than any others in the past. The next attack came when members of the organization The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood accused McDonalds of promoting their company to the young and impressionable children. McDonalds has agreed to cover the cost to print new report card sleeves and the children will no longer be rewarded with a free Happy Meal.
The major agruments are the McDonalds is promoting junk food diets and that children should make good grades without any incentive other than their own personal knowledge. I personally loved to read when I was a child but lets be honest TV is way more fun. I know that those free pizzas were all the incentive I needed to get as many books read as I could. I think that McDonalds has come under attack unfairly. They do plenty of adverising as it is, the free meal was more than likely started as a goodwill gesture to the community and was turned into something worse. Good diets start at home, if the parents look after their children a splurge on a Happy Meal occationally should not be such a big deal. I mean you only get a report card 4 times a year. It was an easy attack and McDonalds fell prey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/business/media/18card.html