Today's Kids' Special - Fat! And Lots of It!

Having spent a fair portion of the summer on the road with my family, I had to laugh - hard - at this morning's Associated Press headline:  "Restaurant kids' meals loaded with calories."  "Parents looking for healthy meal choices for their children are likely to find slim pickings on the menus of the nation's top restaurant chains, according to a report released Monday by a nonprofit public health group," according to AP.

This is news?  I realize the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which released this report, is looking to publicize the very serious obesity crisis affecting American kids, but really.  We may be fat, but we're not stupid.  The actual sub-title of the group's report is "CSPI Investigation Reveals Kids’ Meals at Restaurants Usually Too High in Calories, and Good Options Hard to Find."

It takes an "investigation" to "reveal" this?  I'm sorry, but no-one - regardless of their education level or social status, is fooled into believing that the kids' meals at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Sonic, Jack in the Box, Burger King, Dennys, Dairy Queen, and six other chain restaurants are healthy food options for their children.  When you take your kids to eat at these places, you're not looking for "healthy."  You're looking for quick and cheap.  And when your traveling, it may be the only option within 100 miles. 

However, although the CSPI report comes to the numbingly obvious conclusion that "Obesity is on the Kids' Menus at Top Chains," the scarier news is in the details.  Such as this fact:  93 percent of the nearly 1,500 meal choices kids have at these chain restaurants exceed 430 calories apiece.  That amounts to one-third of the daily calorie intake experts recommend for kids ages 4 through 8.  Even more frightening is the 1,000 calories one Chili's fried chicken meal for kids contains, or the Burger King Big Kid meal that weighs in at 910 calories.

That kind of calorie count for a kids meal is sad and ridiculous.  But the blame for this country's obesity crisis cannot be laid entirely at the doorsteps of chain restaurants.  They are only serving what sells.  They are, after all, running a business that is guided by demand.  And as long as people keep on ordering it...those calories will stay on the kids menu.