Listen, I'll be the first to admit I just don't get kids these days. And, no, I never thought I'd say that. In fact, my own kids are often the biggest mystery of all. And I'd like to think I know them better than any of the others.
So I can kind of see a little logic behind the latest Center for Science in the Public Interest study that picks apart fast food meals like my daughter at the dinner table.
According the group's data, 90 percent of kids' meals at fast food chains are brimming with more calories than they need — along with extra helpings of fat and salt. Yum. (I bet even the toys have more lead than they need, too.)
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Seems the group looked at meals from 13 of the most popular restaurant chains in the country.
Perhaps most jarring, the wee ones frequently get more than two meals' worth of energy in a single visit to a Chili's restaurant.
"Chili's has 700 possible kids' meal combinations, but 658, or 94 percent, of those are too high in calories, including one comprised of country-fried chicken crispers, cinnamon apples and chocolate milk (1,020 calories) and another comprised of cheese pizza, home-style fries and lemonade (1,000 calories)," the group said in a released statement.
Ouch. I sympathize with the cause; I do. And I've written about it more times than my publisher cares to count. But did we really need another study telling us restaurant food isn't good for kids? Honestly? It's like spending thousands of dollars on a survey to spell out professional athlete infidelity rates.
I could have saved them the cash and wrote this column yesterday.
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