Worrying find in fast food. A study published this Monday and carried out by the National Association for the Defense of Consumers and Users (CLCV) indicates that fast food children’s menus are too high in calories compared to their actual nutritional needs.
According to the results of this research, carried out using some fifty formulas aimed at the youngest, caloric intake has tended to increase in recent years, although the rate of childhood obesity has also increased.
“It is, therefore, essential to improve the nutritional quality of children’s menus offered in fast food restaurants and reinforce consumer information,” the authors of the study point out.
Decreased caloric intake
The same association, which carried out a similar study in 2010, points out that since then children’s menus have even deteriorated in terms of caloric intake.
“We compare with our results from 2010: nutritional quality tends to deteriorate, while at the same time, we have an increase in frequentation of these restaurants. This is quite a concerning finding,” says Lisa Faulet, CLCV food and science manager. . , a guest on BFMTV this Monday.
The authors of the study especially regret the access to nutritional information of the products consumed by children, which they consider inconspicuous and incomplete. S’ils recognizes the efforts of the part of certain enseignes pour afficher les nutri-scores sur leur site internet, “le logo n’est pas visible à proximité des produits lors de la commande et nécessite de cliquer sur un onglet specifique”, déclarent -they.
Some fast food restaurants don’t even bother to make them searchable.
“Light” menus rejected by children
Si l’étude rappelle quelques menus enfants plus équilibrés – avec par example une boisson peu ou pas sucrée et une portion de fruits et de legumes – ont été mises en place dans certains fast-food, ces options sont finally très peu choisies par les younger.
On the contrary, the “gourmet” versions of children’s menus are the ones that are most in demand for young people to accompany their hamburger with fries and a soft drink. These formulas represent on average 54% of the daily caloric needs of a 5-year-old child and 59% of an adolescent.
“We have menus that reach up to 1800 kcal. This is the equivalent of 80% of the needs we have in a whole day, and we already reach the maximum in sugar, fat and salt”, says Lisa Faulet.
The solution to remedy this problem would be, according to them, for brands to offer portions adapted to the actual caloric needs of children according to their age group and to exclude menus with too many calories.
Adapt your consumption
For some, however, it’s not about giving up fast food for good. Lisa Faulet therefore gives some tips on how to best regulate your intake and avoid excess calories. Starting with the accompaniment that we chose with the children’s hamburgers.
“You can change sides by having a salad from time to time, or for example, in children’s menus, you can have compotes or drinkable yogurts for dessert that are much less caloric than caramel ice cream.”
Same speech for the sauce and the drink: it is better to favor the less fat and the less sweet to limit the caloric intake of the menu. “Despite the sugar, ketchup is still much lower in calories than mayonnaise, which is very greasy,” recalls Lisa Faulet. “Fruit juice is also very sweet. But at least we have sugars naturally present in fruits. Whereas in soft drinks, we have added sugars and many additives. So maybe we should prefer fruit juices.”
According to ANSES, approximately 50% of children and 60% of adolescents eat fast food at least once a month.
Source: BFM TV
