Healthier fast food: Will kids actually eat it?

Burger King and 18 other restaurant chains are offering lower-calorie children's meals, but skeptics suspect kids will still want fries with that

SpongeBob SquarePants sits on top of a Burger King restaurant: The fast food chain is one of 19 adding healthier options to their kids' meal menus.
(Image credit: Larry W. Smith/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, the National Restaurant Association launched its "Kids Live Well" campaign. That means Burger King, Chili's, El Pollo Loco, and 16 other restaurant chains across the country will add healthy, 600-calorie-or-less kids meals with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and limited sugar and fat to their menus. The healthier options will be available at 15,000 outlets nationwide. Will they actually gets kids to eat better and battle the bulge, or is this just a pointless PR stunt?

It would be surprising if this worked: "While in theory it seems like a nice gesture, will this really have any extra impact besides forcing customers to waste an extra breath in specifying they want French fries?" asks John Talty in the International Business Times. Offering these healthier items is one thing, but getting kids to eat them is another. The success of the program will greatly depend on how well the restaurants market their healthy options, and ultimately, the responsibility for what young kids eat rests with parents.

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