The right age to feed kids fast food?

[Trishiad]

I'm with Jaymes. I have no idea when my fove year old first ate fast food. I will tell you this, he is way more interested in the toy and the dipping sauce than the rest of the items in the bag. We take turns deciding where we'll eat out. Sometimes he'll beg for chicken stars or cheesburgers (grilled cheese from InNOut) but other times he'll insist on Sushi or the local Michelin starred bistro.

Kids these days have amazing palates and as long as they understand why fast food is a treat they'll be just fine.

[Pam B]

At around 2-3 my daughter would beg to go to McDonalds, but she wouldn't eat the food - she just wanted the toy. We soon figured out that we could go in and buy just the toy and go around the block to the neighborhood pizza place for lunch. I'm lucky - she's always been a good eater, willing to try anything - she's 13 now and prides herself on being an adventurous eater (makes restaurants much easier!)

[pax]

I give my kids coupons for junk carbs and sugar. They can spend them anyway they like, althoug most of the choices at home are good ones, I stick to it even when I am out and they are making choices I might not.

You'd be surprised how quick a kid figures it out...a scoop of homemade ice cream after dinner, or the lolly pop at the bank. Mine is 5 and she hoards her "sugar" coupon for "the good stuff".

Fruit and veggies are free and so she chooses them a LOT. Juice other than one glass of oj at breakfast is a sugar and needs a coupon.

It eliminates a LOT of arguing, and all of the blame and responsibility from me, which I like. It allows them to make good choices. It also allows them to learn from bad choices, like when they eat junk somewhere else and can't have the homemade ice cream with everybody at dessert.

My kids go to the Junk Food Parlours with their grandma. If they are out with me we go to the local health food grocery store deli, or mom and pop place. It befuddles my mother when she offers the kid a store bought cookie and the kid looks at it appraisingly and says, "I think I'll wait, Grandma."

[Carrot Top]

I'm sure that fast food is not the devil nor will it cause mindless unhealthy devotion.

But then I wonder why, if there are twenty people in any given fast food place, are eighteen of those people quite overweight to the point where one wonders if it has affected their health.

[Jaymes]

I'm sure that fast food is not the devil nor will it cause mindless unhealthy devotion.

But then I wonder why, if there are twenty people in any given fast food place, are eighteen of those people quite overweight to the point where one wonders if it has affected their health.

I'd venture a guess that it isn't because they eat at McDonald's once a month or so.

I'd wager it's because they make unhealthy lifestyle choices in all areas of their lives. Such as eating at fast food joints daily. And exercise doesn't even reach the "good idea" phase. And when they do cook at home, it's fried foods and white bread and bologna and macaroni and cheese and chocolate milk and Twinkies and other sugary treats buried beneath frothy piles of Cool Whip.

And to wash it down...the ubiquitous cola. Always, the ubiquitous cola.

[hjshorter]

Two beliefs I try to bear in mind when thinking about these sorts of decisions:

1. Kids are highly susceptible to the forbidden fruit phenomenon. I have seen, time and again, enforced health-food regimes backfiring against parents. So one thing I promised myself was that, as a parent, I'd never allow any edible food to acquire forbidden fruit status.

2. Most "unhealthy" foods are harmless in moderation. Eating McDonald's every day: probably not a great idea from a nutrition standpoint. Eating McDonald's once a month: who cares? As part of an overall healthful diet, there's plenty of room for occasional junk.

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I think the "who cares?" approach works, and it's the approach we've taken with our two children. They get the occasional Happy Meal (with the apple slices and a milk) and despite the toys and the marketing almost always choose steak frites at the local bistro or homemade pizza over chicken McNuggets when they get to choose dinner.

ETA: luckily, neither of my kids likes soda, and they like many different fruits and vegetables, so i know they're getting plenty of what's good for them.

Edited August 17, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[LittleChef22]

I don't know... personally I wouldn't be comfortable taking my kids to eat fast food at a young age. McDonald's really has no nutritional value and I dont want to get my kids in the habit of eating food like that.

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

I guess I'm not hard core foodie enough, but my kids get fast food once every 2 weeks on average.

When you have a child with food allergies, and you need a fast meal that doesn't involve calling restaurant managers or waiting half an hour to get your food, the speed and predictability of walking into a McDonalds or Taco Bell is ideal. I can walk into any McDonald's in America and know that my kids can eat certain things off the menu. I can't say that for real restaurants.

When we have the time, my kids prefer stuff like going to the local Pho restaurant, the local pizza joint, or to a taqueria.

My kids were about 10 months to 1 year old when they got their first fast food.

[Cleo]

My daughter is almost 3 and my son is 11 months old. We don't eat at McDonald's on a regular basis by any means, but my daughter has been to McDonald's on occasion, maybe for the first time when she was around 10 or 11 months old and my son has only been there once. The need to go there just doesn't come up that often.

At this point, they eat the majority of their meals at home during the week, so I make them fairly nutritious and balanced meals. I am lucky because they both eat everything -- including loads of vegetables and fruits. We don't keep a lot of cookies/cakes/chips around the house, mostly because I don't want to be the one eating them!

But when we go out for lunch or dinner on the weekends, I see no harm in them eating hamburgers, french fries, etc. I mean, we go to places that are nicer than McDonald's, but french fries are french fries.

I feel like if I keep up with the variety at home and just keep introducing them to more interesting foods, but not "forbidding" the fast-food, it will work to my advantage.

I couldn't agree more with the theory about forbidding them to eat "junk food". It will only backfire on the parents. As a child, my husband was forced to eat certain foods that his father deemed "healthy". Let me tell you that today my 38-year-old husband would die before he would eat a piece of lettuce or a nectarine, or about a thousand other things. The good news is that until he met, it me used to be a million things that he wouldn't eat! And he really doesn't even like McDonald's (except when we go to Europe!).