{"id":128310,"date":"2017-08-10T09:04:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T13:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=128310"},"modified":"2022-06-22T08:59:46","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:59:46","slug":"fast-food-restaurants-not-promoting-healthier-kids-meals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/08\/fast-food-restaurants-not-promoting-healthier-kids-meals\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast-Food Restaurants Not Promoting Healthy Kids\u2019 Meal Options"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Breaking News: On Feb. 15, 2018, McDonald&#8217;s announced it is taking cheeseburgers and chocolate milk off its Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on the calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar that kids consume at its restaurants.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>A new study evaluating major U.S. fast-food restaurant chains\u2019 pledges to offer healthier kids\u2019 meal drinks and sides shows inconsistent implementation at the chains\u2019 individual restaurant locations. In addition,\u00a0promotion of healthier items varied widely between the chains examined, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uconnruddcenter.org\/healthierkidsmeals\">a new report<\/a> from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince 2013, the fast-food restaurants we examined have made changes to offer and promote healthier drink and side options for kids\u2019 meals,\u201d says Jennifer Harris, associate professor of allied health sciences, director of marketing initiatives for the UConn Rudd Center, and lead author of the report. &#8220;Still, about one-third of menu boards inside the restaurants we examined continued to list sugary soda and other soft drinks as an option for kids\u2019 meals. And perhaps more importantly, there was wide variation in whether customers were offered the healthier options when they ordered a kids\u2019 meal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome personnel at all the chains examined continued to give customers a cup for a soft drink and\/or french fries with kids\u2019 meal orders without offering any healthier options \u2013 despite the pledges,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n<p>The new study evaluated implementation of pledges made since 2013 by McDonald\u2019s, Burger King, Subway, Wendy\u2019s, KFC, and Dairy Queen to remove sugar-sweetened fountain drinks from their menu boards and\/or offer healthier drinks and sides with kids\u2019 meals.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers analyzed kids\u2019 meal drink and side items listed on the chains\u2019 websites; kids\u2019 meal drink and side items listed and pictured on menu boards and on signs at a sample of individual restaurants; and drinks and sides offered by individual restaurant personnel when mystery shoppers ordered kids\u2019 meals. To assess changes over time, results were compared to data collected in 2010 and 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Healthier drinks and sides included 100 percent juice, low-fat milk, and water, non-fried fruits and vegetables, and other options. Unhealthy options included sugar-sweetened soda and other fountain drinks, fried potatoes, and desserts.<\/p>\n<p>Key results of the study include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2016, none of the restaurant chains examined listed sugary soda and other soft drinks on the kids\u2019 meal menus posted on their websites, a notable improvement from 2013, when all restaurants except Subway listed them. In addition, all chains listed at least one healthier kids\u2019 meal drink, such as low-fat plain milk, 100 percent juice, and\/or water.<\/li>\n<li>All chains also listed at least one healthier side item on their websites\u2019 kids\u2019 meal menus, including fresh fruit, applesauce, and\/or yogurt. However, all restaurants except Subway continued to list unhealthy kids\u2019 meal side items too, such as french fries or desserts, on their websites\u2019 kids\u2019 meal menus.<\/li>\n<li>Individual restaurants at all chains consistently listed healthier drink and side options on their kids\u2019 meal menu boards inside restaurants in 2016. However, despite pledges to remove sugary soda and other soft drinks from kids\u2019 meal menus, approximately one-third or more of restaurants visited at each chain also continued to list these drinks for kids\u2019 meals on menu boards.<\/li>\n<li>Some personnel at all restaurant chains continued to only offer sugary soda and other soft drink options with kids\u2019 meal orders, ranging from 16 percent to 18 percent of orders at McDonald\u2019s, Burger King, and Subway, to 44 percent of orders at KFC and Wendy\u2019s, and 67 percent of Dairy Queen orders.<\/li>\n<li>Just 8 percent of restaurant personnel at Burger King and 22 percent at Wendy\u2019s offered the restaurants\u2019 healthier kids\u2019 meal side options, compared with 100 percent of orders at McDonald\u2019s.\u00a0 However, at all three restaurants, the majority of kids\u2019 meal orders automatically received french fries \u2013 ranging from 68 percent at McDonald\u2019s (the chain\u2019s kids\u2019 meals come with two side items) to 90 percent at Burger King.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The evaluation found that restaurants have increased the number of healthier side and drink options available with kids\u2019 meals, but customers often\u00a0received sugary soda and other soft drinks and\/or french fries automatically when they ordered a kids\u2019 meal. When restaurant personnel suggested the healthier options, they typically offered them as one of several choices, often together with unhealthy options.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRestaurant chains should do more to actively encourage customers to purchase their healthier kids\u2019 meal drinks and sides at the point of sale,&#8221; Harris says.\u00a0&#8220;Offering healthy drinks and sides as the default with kids\u2019 meals would make them the easiest choice for parents, and help improve the nutrition quality of fast food consumed by children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Support for this research was provided by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Report co-authors include Maia Hyary, Nicole Seymour, and Yoon-Young Choi of the UConn Rudd Center.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breaking News: Yesterday, McDonald&#8217;s announced it is making Happy Meals healthier, a move advocated by UConn&#8217;s Rudd Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":128311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2076,259,2225,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-128310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-research","category-rudd-center","category-uconn-storrs","category-video","post_format-post-format-video","series-science-in-seconds","series-tipping-the-scales-on-obesity"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 10:27:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128310"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134980,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128310\/revisions\/134980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/128311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128310"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=128310"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=128310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}