First of all, I'd like to welcome everyone to my blog (as mentioned above) and give a little introduction before I start my first comments on a recent news story. My name is Rachael and I'm a Creative Writing and Professional Technical Writing double major, and a Senior hoping to graduate this year. I love to write usually but as of late I've been kind of feeling stuck and not able to work on the story ideas I have, something I hope passes soon. In my spare time I like to play video games and make fun of the occasional grammatical error that is found in many of the games I play.
The article I found was on MSNBC from the New York Times and it was about the problem with fast food play area and how unsanitary they are.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44566975/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/#.TnYgnNSM6_0
It surprised me that a person that had such a vendetta against restaurant playground equipment would be featured in the New York Times. This doctor collected samples from several different restaurants and her research seems sound. She discovered some very unsanitary deposits on these playgrounds, which is a sure cause for alarm in the community...or is it?
What was absent from her research was the true nature of these bacterial samples. We don't know what kind of "germs" she discovered, we just know she found a lot. The vast majority of bacteria that is present in our day-to-day life is harmless. Though the bacteria she discovered could have been harmful, we will never know because of her agenda against fast food playlands. She does not identify the germs, and we get a vague "potentially harmful" description of them. Water can be "potentially harmful." Those words mean nothing when looked at closely. She and the author of the New York Times article use their words well to strike fear into the hearts of parents. Who wouldn't get a little nervous if they saw "bacteria" and "children" in the same sentence?
I worked at a McDonald's that had a PlayPlace, and I know that we rarely cleaned it during the day. The problem is that the areas are so small it is very difficult for adults to be able to fit inside and clean the equipment. I would try to get as far into the equipment as possible, but often times could only manage a few feet before I risked getting stuck. I think the problem is more in design than the negligence of staff at the restaurant. In order to clean the playground equipment properly, one has to "climb into tubes, wriggle through tunnels and slide down slides." And that person was only looking for bacterial samples. Imagine trying to get through there with a bottle of cleaning solution and cleaning towels in your hands. Not to mention, children would have to keep off the play area for whatever length of time it would require to clean it. The cleaning would have to occur several times during the day. And many McDonald's PlayPlaces have signs that prohibit anyone of a certain height and weight to get inside the equipment. The worst case scenario if an adult tries to clean in there is that they get stuck, horribly stuck, a situation that requires the assistance of emergency workers. I'm sure nobody wants that either.
I think, instead of dropping the hammer on the individual restaurants, the government need to crack down on the manufacturers and make them build equipment that is easier to clean and/or germ resistant. Something like this:
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/health/doctor_jo/shark-skin-used-to-keep-germs-at-bay-021110
I believe that if manufacturers of playground equipment investigated this new material, they might be able to develop new materials that would help stop the spread of germs in playground equipment all over the country. People always like to blame the first person they see in connection to the problem. "Oh, the workers must not be doing their jobs." But in reality, we try very hard to make sure the restaurant is clean. I think we should ask the higher-ups to do the same and design their PlayPlaces with some level of intelligence. Or maybe they should stop building the playgrounds inside the restaurants and have children get some fresh air for a change.
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