Despite fast-food food restaurants getting a much-needed healthy makeover in recent years, reports suggest they continue to fail when it comes to feeding kids.
According to research conducted by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, only one percent of the fast food produced for kids are healthy.
Researchers analyzed menu offerings from 18 fast-food chains. They considered all the possible combinations of main dishes, sides and drinks, for a total of 5,427 possible meals. Of those meals, only 33 meals met the nutritional guidelines put forth by the Institute of Medicine. That's barely one percent.
Eleven out of 12 of the restaurants with a kids meal had at least one option for a side dish that the center considered "healthy," such as sliced apples, banana, fruits cups, applesauce, green beans, corn or salad.
According to the report, researchers evaluated the quality of the kids' meals and individual items in them using the NPI (Nutritional Profiling Index) Score, which provides a measure of the "overall nutritional composition of the individual menu items."
Fast-food restaurants cut back on commercials aimed at younger children between six and 11 year-old, but boosted the number of ads aimed at teens. In addition, more than three-quarters of the restaurants offered a healthy drinks choice, usually unflavored milk, 100 percent juice to bottle water.
According to the published report in Fast Food FACTS, one-third of children eat fast food every day. Yes, every day. The report also found that just "12 of 3,039 possible kids' meal combinations met nutrition criteria for preschoolers."
For teens, "Of the 2,900 regular menu items examined, just 17 percent qualified as healthy."
The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity is a leading proponent of efforts to remove sugary drinks from schools and impose a tax on soda, among other initiatives.
