Food marketing in restaurants
American adults and children consume on average one third of their calories from eating out. And children eat almost twice as many calories when they eat a meal at a restaurant compared to a meal at home. This is in large part because many restaurants lack low-calorie healthy options for children, or at least fail to make them the default accompaniment to a meal. In other words, they don’t make the healthy choice the easy choice. A study of the nation’s top 25 chain restaurants found that 93% of children’s meal combinations are too high in calories, 45% are too high in saturated fat, and 86% are too high in sodium.1
Providing and advertising healthier side dishes and drinks as the default options in children’s meals can reduce barriers to healthful eating. Research shows defaults work. For example, at Disney theme parks, fruits and vegetables are the default side dishes and low-fat milk and juice are the default beverages with children’s meals. The healthier options have been well-received, with two-thirds of parents sticking with the healthier meal options for their children.1
To learn more about the nutritional quality and marketing of kids’ meals in restaurants, view the resources below. To learn how you can be part of the solution, visit our policy pages and take action section.
Learn more
Kids’ meals: Obesity on the menu [pdf]
Center for Science in the Public Interest. Author Ameena Batada.
See related coverage in The New York Times, USA Today and Huffington Post.
Fast food FACTS (full report, report summary, and tools for consumers and researchers available)
Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity
Study: Nutritional quality of restaurant children’s meals [pdf]
Center for Science in the Public Interest. Authors Margo Wootan, Ameena Batada, and Elizabeth Marchlewicz.
Fact sheet: Restaurant children’s meals: The faults with defaults
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Literature review: Effect of defaults on consumer choice [pdf]
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Fact sheet: Toy giveaways with restaurant children’s meals
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Commentary: Children’s meals in restaurants: Families need more help to make healthy choices [pdf]
Childhood Obesity. Author Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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