A parents' group says fast food outlets should offer water - not soft drink or juice - with every meal.
“What soft drink would you like?”
“You get a free juice with that, which one would you like?”
Buying any fast food tends to bring with it the offer of a sugary drink. From a pizza-and-a-bottle takeaway deal, to a ‘free juice with every children’s meal’ offer, this is a practices that normalises sugary drinks as a part of family meals.
A new initiative seeks to change all that.
Parents’ Voice is an online network of parents pressing for healthy change. The group is calling for all fast food outlets to offer water with meals as standard.
Companies the group is targeting include McDonald's, Hungry Jack's, Red Rooster, Pizza Hut, Oporto, KFC and Chicken Treat.
“We’re calling on Fast Food to serve water with their kids’ meals, just like their ads say they do.” the group explains.
SugarByHalf’s Professor Matthew Hopcraft from Melbourne University, dental expert, explains that drinks high in sugar have a serious impact on children's health, leading to soaring rates of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes and tooth decay.
"We know that these companies need to be taking more of a responsible role in offering a healthy alternative and offering water and not offering a soft drink to a five- or six-year-old kid as part of their so-called happy meal for example," explains Professor Hopcraft.
"There is a strong link between sugar consumption and poor health outcomes.”
"One in two kids by the age of six have tooth decay in their baby teeth so it's very extreme and then there's obesity and there's type 2 diabetes."
Find out more: Water with that
How does sugar compare to tobacco? A teaspoon of sugar or one cigarette will not harm you. But over time, the habit can be fatal. Unlike Big Tobacco, Big Sugar deliberately targets children. And added sugar has become so pervasive within the food environment that we can't avoid it even if we wanted to.
