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Combo meals at fast food joints are usually not a healthy option, often including a sugary beverage, one or two fried sides, and a high-calorie, low nutrient main entree, but recent studies now suggest that excluding sodas from kids meal may make the healthier the choice the easier choice for kids and parents on the go.
According to research published recently in the American Journal of Public Health online, kids meals that include a sugary beverage as part of the meal, add up to 82 more calories on average for each kids meal. Also, parents who buy kids meals where the price includes a beverage usually opt to choose a high-calorie, sugar-sweetened beverage rather than a sugar-free drink or no beverage.
Researchers suggest from the findings that restaurants should ungroup sodas and sugary beverages from kids meals, which in turn could help to curb high-calorie intake and possibly reduce childhood obesity in some ways.
The study surveyed 483 boys and girls in Newark, New York or Jersey City, NJ between 1 and 18 years old who ate at common fast food joints from January 2013 to June 2014. The added sugars counted from added sugary drinks onto meals helped explain to researchers how many of the meals came to exceed calorie intake for national dietary guidelines.
Among meals purchased, only 5% were flavored milk, 2% regular milk and 1% water. The study also revealed that teens were 22% more likely to drink sodas than younger kids and males were 31% more likely than females to drink sweetened drinks as well.
About 22% of Latino high-school students have 3 or more sugary drinks a day, studies show. Daily amounts of sugary drinks like this have also been linked to higher risks for kids to grow up as adults with type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
Brian Elbel, PhD and study senior investigator and associate professor in the Department of Population Health a NYU Langone told The Daily Meal, “Although our study does not prove cause and effect with respect to obesity and bundled fast-food meals,” Elbel says, “policy-makers will ideally be able to use research like ours to guide them in formulating public health policies that may effectively decrease consumption of unhealthy sugar-sweetened beverages.
By The Numbers
1
Supermarket
for every Latino neighborhood, compared to 3 for every non-Latino neighborhood
