Sep. 29--It's enough to make parents swear they'll never take the kids out to eat again.
A chicken fingers meal packs a walloping 1,100 calories, 75 percent of the recommended daily calories for an 8-year-old. A children's beef taco platter serves up an astounding 2,760 milligrams of sodium, more than double the United States Department of Agriculture daily recommendation for an 8-year-old. A kid would get less sodium by downing an entire teaspoon of table salt.
In the kid-centric follow-up to last year's best-selling book "Eat This, Not That!," authors David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding examine the meals served to children and offer healthier alternatives, whether kids will be hitting the fast food drive-through, sampling ethnic eateries or facing lunch in the school cafeteria.
Both "Eat This, Not That! For Kids!" recently published by Rodale in Emmaus, and its predecessor grew out of the extremely popular column in Rodale's Men's Health magazine, which spawned an Eat This, Not That! Web site that gets 10-20 million page views a month.
"Eat This, Not That! For Kids!" follows the colorful and graphic format of the first book, offering detailed nutritional information and simple food swaps to help parents and their kids make better nutritional choices at a glance. Good choices are offered on the left, bad choices on the right.
Some seem obvious: Olive Garden's children's grilled chicken at 350 calories is a better bet than the macaroni and cheese with 510 calories.
Some are not so obvious: A kiddie ice cream cone at McDonald's with just 45 calories, is a better choice than the 250-calorie McDonaldland cookies.
Throughout the book, Zinczenko, a Bethlehem native and editor-in-chief of Rodale's "Men's Health" magazine, and Matt Goulding, an Allentown resident, reveal the hidden calories and fat in the foods we eat.
"Studies show the average person underestimates how much he eats by 600 calories," says Zinczenko. "That can mean 10 to 15 pounds over a year. A lot of people are confused, and it's a very serious problem when two out of three Americans are overweight. It's easy to see why kids are growing up fatter."
Zinczenko says he struggled with his weight as a child and blames it partly on "ordering meals from a clown head," referring to Ronald McDonald.
"The average child will see more than 5,000 food commercials in a year," he says. "Many are very calorie-laden. Add to that a lack of basic nutrition education in school."
The two men were shocked by what they found as they researched the kids' meals offered at restaurants across the country.
"Some of these meals are sheer industrial-strength caloric bombs," says Goulding. "When you have two days worth of sodium and three days worth of fat in one meal, there's a problem."
Some of the culprits kids face are the same that plague adult meals -- huge portion sizes, fatty dressings, excess oil, salt, added sugar and refined grains.
"The restaurants want you leaving full and are less concerned with nutrients," Zinczenko says.
They rated national chains on their nutritional choices for children and "gave out a lot of Ds and Fs," says Goulding.
He and Zinczenko discovered many restaurants didn't provide nutritional information about their food. Some like Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden, which both earned Fs, still refuse to provide the information.
Others were inspired to improve their menus, such as Quiznos, which earned a C+ and provides full nutritional details.
Having the information upfront is important, says Zinczenko, because studies show that if people have it available, they will make healthier choices.
"This turned into a crusade for us," he says.
The book also details making healthy choices at ethnic restaurants, such as asking for dumplings steamed rather than fried at a Chinese restaurant, and splitting the usually too large serving of chicken fajita, which is basically a healthy grilled chicken and vegetables, when dining Mexican.
Other sections of "Eat This, Not That! for Kids" deconstruct grocery items, such as snacks, breakfast cereals, cookies and even candy.
"We are realistic," Goulding says. "Kids are going to eat candy bars and parents can minimize the damage. If a child eats a KitKat instead of a Snickers, he will save 50 calories. We don't look at food as good or bad. We look at relative goods and bads. Learning to navigate the candy aisle is just as important as the produce aisle. This is the kind of culture we live in, and we need to make smart decisions."
kathy.lauer@mcall.com
61-778-2235
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