Reply #7: It's the American way

[gratuitous]

Even if there's no need or desireability for something, if someone can make a buck off it, the right to make that dollar means more than anything in our society. About the only thing you can't do is mug somebody for that dollar, but up to the point of physical assault, just about anything else goes.

If you're more concerned about people's health than you are about McDonald's making that dollar, you are hooted down as being against "capitalism" or in favor of some other "unAmerican" activity, like wanting to swat a Big Mac out of children's hands. The damage done to our society by the proliferation of the empty calories of McDonald's "food" never enters into the conversation, trumped by the almighty dollar that McDonald's can make.