You'll find them in chain restaurants such as Applebees, Mimis, Outback Steakhouse and Old Chicago Pizza. They are children's menus with fatty food choices. Major items may include corn dogs, burgers, chicken fingers, fries, sodas and desserts. Mac and cheese might be the healthiest item. Most are 'combos.'
Of course parental choice or packing food along is a key, however, many parents are overwhelmed with errands, face unexpected events, or settle on the nearest available eatery to satisfy hungry kids.
In these restaurants, the expectation is that for 4 to 5 dollars, parents will pay for children's food rather than share some of their own plate with their child. Some may rationalize that the children's menu saves parents money because they need not buy something extra at an adult entree price. However, in some of these restaurants, side orders have been removed from menus, appetizers left on and child's meals turned into 'combos.'
Why do they do it? Because it is profitable, addicts new generations to fatty foods, and eliminates the sharing of parents' plates with kids, creating new revenue for those that didn't have a substantial children's menu to begin with.
Some of the menus come as folded coloring sheets with crayons enclosed or attached. The food choices are drawn on to the "children's menu" and are already colored in.
Kristi Leong MD has written
this piece at Associated Content about the problem of finding healthy choices while out with children. It is a helpful information piece for those days when parents are caught out and about wanting healthier meal choices for their kids.
Dr. Leong has some good suggestions and I'd add one more I didn't see there: many grocery stores now serve relatively healthy soup, salad, vegetable, pasta and sandwich choices in their deli areas. This still requires discrimination, but grocery store locations are easier for many parents to remember, and their produce sections round out whatever may be lacking in the deli.
