Originally published April 18 2005
Dieticians teaching kids about the pitfalls of a fast food lifestyle
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Teams of dieticians in San Diego, California are taking an important to message to the city's school kids: watch what you eat when you go for fast food. In particular, the experts are working with kids ages 9-11 to make sure they know, for example, that a typical portion of food at a fast food restaurant is much more than enough. Typical servings of restaurant food can be 6 times the healthy size, experts say.
Tonight, when you and the family sit down to dinner, nutrition experts want you to take a really good look at what's on those plates.
"The typical American portion is not a serving size," says Katie Bogue.
program, that aims to teach children 9 to 11 about the importance of eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and being physically active every day.
Bogue is part of the army of health professionals fighting the alarming increase in obesity among adults and children.
At the heart of the problem is not only what those adults and children eat, but how incredibly much they eat.
For example, if you order a pasta entree at your favorite restaurant, you just assume it's a serving.
Kids' meals generally provide the right amount of food, but be careful of what you order.
In the Pesky Kids Meal (top photo), one of several at Rubio's, a fish taco with rice and a churro has 460 calories, 185 from fat.
Now, if your child chose the bean and cheese burrito instead of the fish taco, and chips instead of rice, that meal jumps to 860 calories, 325 from fat.
"The typical pasta plate contains four to six servings of grains," says Bogue.
Sitting at the lunch table with her girlfriends at Mount Vernon Elementary School in Spring Valley, Victoria pointed out that an all-you-can-eat meal is a great deal, but not a great idea.
Children learn otherwise about serving sizes outside of school meals, given the huge portion sizes of snack foods, large quantities served at home, and provided in many restaurants."
And Bogue and McKay both say that working with the kids at schools is often the best way to get the message to them, and to their parents.
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