One food watchdog group isn’t so happy about the Happy Meal. According to The Early Show, the group is criticizing McDonalds for encouraging unhealthy eating habits by pairing toys (often featuring famous kids’ characters) with the cheeseburgers and fries.  Check out the video:

The lawsuit threat comes just days after a study found that fifty percent of children say that food from a package decorated with a cartoon celebrity such as Shrek tastes better than the same exact food from a plain package. The use of TV and movie characters on food packaging is “designed to access certain feelings, memories, and associations,” says Dr. Thomas Robinson, M.D., a professor of child health at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. “If you associate certain products with things that are otherwise considered fun, it’s going to make those products seem more desirable.”

The marketing effect might not be such a bad thing; characters like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants have been used to market fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, they’re most often used on chips, candy, Happy Meals and even Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Should characters on junk foods go the way of characters marketing cigarettes?