Restaurant kid meals loaded with calories

For all the hoopla over the high calorie/sodium/fat/etc. that are in these restaurants for adult meals, this "revelation" that kids meals are high in calories cannot come as a surprise. A long time ago my wife and I started ordering kids meals if we are forced to eat out, and have found that they are just fine and filling (for what they are) for us, so I cannot imagine what our kids are doing with it (with magnitudes of intake higher than what they need). We have rationed our daughter to half of the meals contents, and after some adjustment, she is doing fine, her weight is stabilized and she seems to be holding well. We supplement with vitamins and fruit (real) snacks, and that has worked out nicely. We also found we are spending about half of what we were on eating out, based upon the prices of these meals compared to full size entrees.

So, there's way to keep it under control without giving it up altogether.

Who gave anyone the right to determine what is right for someone and what isn't? There is a cadre of people in this country who feel that they have a God-Given right to determine what's good for everyone, no matter what. That 1000 calorie meal may be the only food that a kid gets all day--you certainly don't know the circumstances and have no right to presume that you do. Life styles are not one size fits all. I know that the food police are becoming a viable force for regulating the possibility of any one eating anything other that tofu, but it's about time that you all mind your own business, not anyone else's. Not everyone thinks that looking like you died 3 days ago and haven't been buried yet is a good thing. Back off and let people decide for themselves.

Wow, thanks for the breaking news. I am sure they will follow this up with a groundbreaking study that concludes it's expensive to live in New York or San Francisco.

Who cares?

When you go out to eat, you should acknowledge that you're going to eat a bit unhealthy that particular day. That's just part of going to these places. And since kid's metabolisms are faster than anyone on the planet I think they can handle a few extra calories once in a while. If you want to eat healthy, cook a good meal at home. Enough with these scare tactic non-stories.

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Why is it the restaurants' job to make sure kids are eating a healthy meal? What about parents' responsibilities? It's not like people honestly think that fried chicked, french fries, and soda is healthy. You don't go to Taco Bell or KFC for a "healthy" meal. Restaurants are businesses like any other, and if their products are selling, then that's their business. If people are honestly upset that Taco Bell doesn't offer more fresh vegetables, then they will stop going to taco bell, in which case Taco Bell will have to alter it's business model and include more healthy options to regain lost business. But, agreed, why is it the government's place to get involved? And thanks for spending thousands of dollars suveying these kids menus only to find out the obvious---fried chicken and cheeseburgers are fatty and full of calories--thank you Captain Obvious. Let's spend that money on something else, like a program that offers low income families reduced prices on produce which can be difficult for them to afford.

I understand that it can be difficult for low income families to provide nutritious meals for their families, but come on, someone needed to do a survey to figure out Cheetohs weren't good for you? Give me a break.

You can make a meal 100% healthy, but if the kids dont eat it--so what !

I agree with dvs405 and Lucy completely. What will the food police do next? Send storm troopers to every house to make sure the parents cook only low fat, low calorie meals? They should also check to make sure the children do not watch TV, play video games but exercise religiously for several hours a day. Other than that, these "well meaning" people are on an excellent path to ruining the restaurant industry, not reducing the number of fat people.

All those calories and no Phys. Ed and curtailing recess in schools. Kinda throws the idea of preparing our young for the future out the window, doesn't it.

People keep doing these studies only to find out what we have known for years; this fast food is too high in fat and calories for us or for our children to eat at every meal. You really need to do a story on how to encourage people to go to the grocery store, what to buy, and how to cook it for an entire week. I am a working mother (40+hours a week) of two (1 and 3) and my husband travels so I am basically a single mom during the week. I cook on the weekend to prepare for the entire week on a budget of less than $100 and that includes organic milk, fruit, veggies, etc. Our meals consist of healthy cooked meats, veggies, and fruit or sugar free popsicles for dessert. If I can do it...... other working mothers can do it too. They just need some ideas to get them in the right direction. As a treat we get fast food or chain food occasionally but not every week and certainly not every day. I love my french fries, hamburgers, ice cream, and cokes but people need to open their eyes and see that this stuff (if eaten on a regular basis) is killing them and their kids. Like I said.....If I can do it others can do it too. It isn't that hard!!!

What is the big deal? Calories are just a measure of energy. Just because one buys a dozen donuts, does not mean they have to eat them at one sitting.

Another question. What exactly, is "fast food"? It seems that over time, "junk food" has morphed into "fast food". Go to a high-end restaurant and have a six course dinner that lasts two hours; because it is a"slow" meal, does that make it healthy? Remember, Henry VIII had gout, and never had a BigMac.

Yes, Spike, calories are a measure of energy, but if you don't burn those calories, they turn into fat. I have seen more obese children than I care to. Some have diseases or other medical issues that cause this, but the majority are poor eating and exercise choices provided by parents. Most parents give their kids cookies, chips and kool-aid (or heaven forbid, an energy drink) instead of fruit and milk or water. Then, instead of making their kids go outside, they allow their TVs and video games to babysit while the parent(s) do what they want.

And Henry VIII may not have had a BigMac, but I'm sure all those sauces that they used to cover the rancid, fat filled meat that was stored in SALT had more to do with any health issues. Also, gout is just a type of arthritis that is inflammatory and quite painful as it generally resides in the feet and/or legs.

Fat, lazy, entitled parents will create a generation of fat, lazy, entitled children. I think that we are now seeing the impact of multiple generations with this attitude. No wonder these people want the government to take care of them. They are to foolish to take care of themselves.

guess what I am not surprise at all. Most of the top 15 restaurants are fast food. Fast food are generally not good for you anyways. So why would you take yur kids there. Fast food = fat food. Most of the people today are lazy, and not willing to cook cause it takes time and they " said that they don't have enough time to cook. Kids these days spend 12-20hrs of their time sitting in front of a T.V, computer and do no exercises and guess what they become fat.

I don't see a lot of fat people where i live, but when i see it , i am very disturb by it. Couple weeks ago, on the bus i saw one particular Caucasian mom with her daughter . Her daughter is probably 7-9 years old. They were both overweight and I am just sitting there looking at them especially the kid, and I was thinking to myself does the mother is doing to her kid, what in the world is she feeding her, does she know that she is killing her kid not helping her at all. She is setting her kid's life into a life of obesity and the kid will have plenty of health problem in the future if her mother does not act on it now. By giving her kid , the real food that she really need.

Whats the difference between boogers and broccoli?

Kids will eat boogers!

From what I gather from the article, this was just research done about the typical meals found in most fast food resteraunts. Everyone knows fast food is bad. That isn't what this article was trying to prove. It was trying to show just what percentage of kids meals at fast food resteraunts are unhealthy, something I never heard before.

This isn't the food police coming to take away your kids away or smack the Big Mac out of your hand. Big Brother isn't coming for you. This is just knowledge and only a fool would devalue it.

I'm not sure why we should be surprised about this - chain restaurants (fast food or sit-down) are notoriously poor choices for anyone who wants to eat a healthful diet. While I'm not convinced that we should regulate this in any way, I think that parents (me included) need to make better choices about the food that we feed our children. If we don't we will have an entire generation of children who are obese with all of the same ills that many adults are now suffering from.

What is "right" is based on facts that scientists, nutritionists and doctors attained through research. It's also based on average eating habits and not on eating one meal a day. Being grossly thin is not desirable but neither is being grossly fat. Humans are diverse and the window of "normality" is large.

There is also the matter of deception and brainwashing for profit. The goal of the article is not to ruin the restaurant industry but rather to get the industry to provide healthier food choices and to educate the public that it is not healthy to eat this stuff. It should be illegal for Applebee's, TGIFriday's, Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and IHOP (International House of Pancakes) to not disclose information about their food. All merchants should provide certified information about the goods and services they sell. Lead paint in baby toys anyone? Perhaps a little glycol in your toothpaste will be OK.

Some have stated that we should expect to eat unhealthy food when we eat out. Why would anybody expect that? Perhaps some have been conditioned to expect that. I'm lovin it.

We don't need storm troopers. We need food providers to be honest and transparent about the goods they sell. I do not endorse forcing people to do what they should do for themselves. It's natural for the weak and lazy to die off. However, I do believe the certified facts should be available so those who do want to do the right thing for themselves and their children can.

When I was a kid of about 13-14 yrs of age my standard meal at McDonalds was two BigMacs, a cheesburger, fries and a shake. But I was fit and in shape playing football, taking karate, riding bikes, etc. Kids these days sit on the couch or at the computer playing stupid games!

Kids get a third of their meals from fast food restaurants?

Makes it easy to see why there are so many fat disgusting kids walking around, their parents (who were probably too young to have kids themselves) are too damn lazy to cook meals at home.

A third??? When I was growing up if my parents took me to McDonalds or Burger King once a month it was alot. You know what having lazy parents leads to? It leads to fat lazy kids.

I am glad that light is being shed on restaurants. In the last couple of years I have been reading up on all kinds of nutritional information. With this came the understanding that many of the foods we purchase/eat in traditional grocery stores and restaurants are NOT healthy.

Calories are far from the main reason for increasing obesity in America. Read the statistics on when obesity started increasing in America. There is a correlation to the start of vegetable oils, margarine, decreasing fats (what I now call healthy fats). This would be sometime around the early 1980's (roughly).

With cancer continuing to rise along with obesity we need to look at what we are ingesting and what it is doing to our bodies.

Some of things I have come to avoid like the plague are high fructose corn syrup, trans fatty acids, white bread and pastas, sugar just to name a few. Look on labels in the grocery store or in your pantry at how many products have high fructose corn syrup. It is so highly processed that our body has a hard time processing it and it supposedly keeps you from feeling full so you are continually hungry. The more real food is processed and changed to make things cheaper and easier the worse off we are for eating it.

Why shouldn't we question what businesses are enticing our children with? Why shouldn't we question what our government allows to be put into our foods? I am glad that these are looked into and only wish these articles would delve deeper. High calories doesn't even scratch the surface.

Not the CSPI again. I swear, those folks want to take the fun out of eating and make us eat nothing but nutrient-dense slop.

doyourownresearch, if we can't eat anything with sugar, white bread, trans fats, or the other stuff you mentioned, then what should we eat? You seem to have eliminated just about everything there.

""Parents want to feed their children healthy meals, but America's chain restaurants are setting parents up to fail,""

Ummm, I can't help but laugh at this...they're setting parents up to fail, parents have no choice, they MUST buy these meals. Wow, personal responsibility is to be found where again?

Maybe some people shouldn't go out to eat as much. Whatever happened to being accountable for your own actions? If the health of your child is that important, and it should be, parents should be more in control of what their kids consume. To me that means you cook for them. I know that nowadays eating out is sometimes an only option for busy households, but you can't place ridiculous demands on restaurants to cater to your every need. You have a choice on where to go out to eat.

I've been in food service for a long time and am also an aficinado of eating out. To me, it's a guilty pleasure, both in terms of money and "health". It's not secret it costs more to eat out, so when I do I know it's not going to be cheap, and I know it's more than likely not going to be healthy. If I want something healthy, I'm staying home and making it myself. Restaurants take pride in the food they serve, especially when it distinguishes them from other establishments.

What I love about this article (being sarcastic) is how they failed to disclose the more healthy options at one particular restaurant, that being Chili's. There are many menu items that aren't as high in calories as the poor examples they gave. Grilled chicken sandwiches, grilled chicken platters, and pastas. Sides include fresh steamed vegetables and cob corn, all of which can be ordered without butter. And the menu isn't hard to navigate at all. If parents are having difficulty navigating through a picture menu, then there are other problems to consider, and it's not the menu and options. I'm not defending this chain because I work there, I'm just a cook there and my job isn't made easier by accommodating special gusts requests, but there have not been many requests that we have not been able to fulfill for guests.

It doesn't take a genius or and MSNBC article to be aware of how unhealthy some foods are. The real shocker would have been if these foods weren't as high in calories. I guess this is just a type of consumer awareness article. But if there is anyone who should be the food police it's the parents. They are the ones who have to make a better choice for their families and not the restaurants. What do they care? They're just out to get your dollars anyways.