Can fast food meals for kids be a healthy part of your child’s diet? What options can make it a more nutritious meal that your kids will enjoy? Fast food kids’ meals can be part of a well-balanced diet for kids. In fact, some fast food restaurants offer age-appropriate portion sizes and contain important nutrients that growing kids need, including calcium, iron, vitamin C, protein and other vitamins and minerals.
Fast food kids’ meals also offer a variety of choices to help your child achieve the right balance between the amount of calories consumed and the amount burned off through physical activity. Options include apple slices with low-fat caramel sauce, 1% low-fat white or chocolate milk and an apple juice box.
These places are constantly changing their options to match the popularity of the choices. In July 2005, another fast food restaurant began offering families both white and chocolate milk, as well as mandarin oranges, as kids' meal options. Since that time, milk sales have averaged about 750,000 units per week. This compares to 54,000 weekly units before introducing the popular kids' meal program. This same restaurant also included two new nutritious deli sandwiches (roasted turkey and cheese, and black forest ham and cheese) as well as the low-fat yogurt and granola cup. Parents can substitute the yogurt cup or mandarin oranges for french fries at no additional charge when ordering for their children. They can also substitute 2% reduced fat white milk or 1% low-fat chocolate milk for the soft drink.
The major advantage about offering a kids’ meal is that they offer a smaller portion more appropriate for children than the adult size value meals. The major disadvantage is that kids’ meals from any fast food place lack vegetables – unless you want to count potatoes as the vegetable choice. If children don’t want the healthier selection, they end up getting a large amount of the fat – up to 24 grams per meal. Understand that it still isn't a very 'healthy' meal, if you go with the cheeseburger, medium fries, soda and ice cream that have 1080 calories and 40 grams of fat. For a 7-10 year old, that would be 54% of their daily calorie requirements and 62% of their daily fat requirements, all in one meal.
Lastly, just remember moderation is the key to eating fast food – the higher frequency of fast foods meals will result in less adequate nutrition in the diet. Make eating fast food a special outing not a daily occurrence.
Rebecca
