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Poll Opened: October 20, 2008

Poll Closes: October 20, 2008

By Mary Shedden, The Tampa Tribune
If you grab a fast-food meal for your kids tonight, you may be dumping a grownup portion of calories into their pint-sized bodies.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest found a whopping 93 percent of the kids meals offered by 13 top chains - including Chick-Fil-A and McDonald's - contain too many calories.
Several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institutes of Medicine for sedentary children who are 4 to 8 years old. The one major exception is Subway.
Calorie-laden soft drinks and fried foods, such as chicken nuggets and French fries, continue to dominate menus, despite a recent trend toward adding more healthful selections. Apple slices, raisins, yogurt, water and 2 percent milk are available substitutions that can reduce calories and boost nutritional value.
"With a few swaps and switches, people really can make healthier choices at these fast-food joints, especially when the decisions are made before going in, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, an American Dietetic Association spokeswoman.
CSPI set its optimal calorie count at 430 because it is one-third of the recommended average daily calories for sedentary children. An active child in that range would need about 565 calories per meal, according to the IOM, a component of the National Academies of Science.
The study also found that 45 percent of the kids meals are high in saturated fat and trans fat, and 86 percent are high in sodium.

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