By the time you are old enough to make your own dietary choices you should be well past the happy meal age. If parents are letting children this age dictate what they are eating then happy meals toys are the least of their problems.

I think you fail to understand why kids are getting fat. It is because they eat like their fat parents and because they spend all day with their asses parked in chairs watching things.

Yes they use the toy to encourage the kid to want the meal, just like all the other marketing thrown at kids these days. The toy is not why the kids want to eat fatty salty foods though.