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"Children's Menus" New Way to Addict Children to Fatty Foods
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.
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One way parents mistakenly try to relieve the feeling of being overwhelmed is by paying for school lunches. The parents are often lulled into a false sense that the school cafeteria will offer healthy choices.
It is interesting to note that many cash strapped schools, will cave to requests made by fast food enterprises to cater their entire lunch menu offering incentives.
- Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, pg. 56So while it has been attempted to assign the blame of childhood obesity on the parents, children are bombarded by virulent marketing wherever they go.
The problem has gotten so bad it prompted this MAD TV SKIT.
April 24, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I missed this. Informative comment and well-placed quotations. Thanks for improving this.
May 2, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The crap they serve at my kids schools is even more processed and sugared up than anything they serve as 'kid friendly' at chain restaurants. I used to gripe and complain about all the 'temptation' until I realized that it's really up to me to deprogram my children when it comes to food choices.
Everywhere we go, at every meal we discuss how every bite counts, how the number of bites and whats within them fuels your body or poisons it. We discuss it every time someone says 'I'm hungry' an hour before dinner, we discuss what might be available to eat while we're out an about and if 10 minutes packing something will make the whole outing more productive. When I take my kids out to lunch 9 times out of 10 its to the local grocery store deli counter.
At the end of the day I'm not spoon feeding my kids anything - they need to be held accountable for their food choices and health. At home, at school or at a restaurant.
P.S. I actually had to confiscate french toast flavored cookies that the school cafeteria had served my son. I didn't even know there was such a thing as french toast flavored cookies.
April 24, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mercy sakes alive. If there are any unemployed nutritionists out there, I know a few school cafeterias that could use them. Maybe it's time for organic growers to get more subsidies than their non-organic competitors, and tax breaks to grocery and food chains that increase their healthy fare. The healthier food choices will pay off in tomorrow's health care savings.
May 2, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just wanted to say that whomever wrote this article needs to do a little more research. My child's favorite restaurant is Outback Steakhouse where they DO offer a couple of healthy kids choices. I don't have the menu memorized or anything but my boy always gets a GRILLED chicken breast with un-buttered broccoli...that is about as healty as you can get at a chain restaurant. He can get veggies, fresh green beans, broc, or other options as his side item if he so chooses...plus they make everything from scratch...so no MSG's or harmful additives like most restaurants. Besides that, excluding my child, how many kids do you know that want veggies or grilled chicken? If that is all they had on the kids menu there would be a lot of un-happy kids in the dining room. The fact is, fried chicken fingers, mac and cheese and burgers is what the little buggers want to eat and it is the PARENTS, not the restaurants that should be to blame.
April 27, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any disclosures of affiliation you'd like to make? Just want to keep everything in context.
You'll have to take up your dispute on Outback with Dr. Leong who writes prolifically on this topic at Associated Content. Perhaps her insights inspired Outback to offer what it is that you describe.
May 2, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink