"HAPPY MEALS" - MORE FRUIT, LESS FRIES
PAJAMAS MEDIA
JULY 27, 2011
I just saw a picture of Michelle Obama on Drudge with a storyline underneath exclaiming “Apple Slices in Every Happy Meal!” I headed over to the linked article and read:
An apple a day may keep the doctor away. But when you put it in a Happy Meal, it might help keep regulators at bay too. McDonald’s on Tuesday said that it would add apple slices and reduce the portion of French fries in its children’s meal boxes beginning this fall, effectively taking away consumers’ current choice between either having apples with caramel dip or fries as a Happy Meal side.
Great, I’m allergic to apples as are many people because of the pollen allergy. I have a friend who has very low sodium levels and when she goes to restaurants in New York City where she lives, she actually needs the salt. Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to ban salt leave my friend frustrated and annoyed. I wonder how many kids have apple and/or pollen allergies? Human physiology varies from person to person. One person’s apples are another’s poison. Are regulators and perhaps Michelle Obama trying to kill me with their “good intentions”? And don’t they care about the children?
Posted at 6:35 am on July 27th, 2011 by 
NOTE:
According to Boston doctors, there aren't too many "Happy" meals for some of our children:
BOSTON GLOBE
A rising hunger among children
BMC sees more who are dangerously thin and facing lasting problems
Janell Goode, a single Lowell mother who is now unemployed, has struggled to feed her young sons a healthy diet.
Doctors at a major Boston hospital report they are seeing more hungry and dangerously thin young children in the emergency room than at any time in more than a decade of surveying families.
Many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children, say the Boston Medical Center doctors. The resulting chronic hunger threatens to leave scores of infants and toddlers with lasting learning and developmental problems.
Before the economy soured in 2007, 12 percent of youngsters age 3 and under whose families were randomly surveyed in the hospital’s emergency department were significantly underweight. In 2010, that percentage jumped to 18 percent, and the tide does not appear to be abating, said Dr. Megan Sandel, an associate professor of pediatrics and public health at BMC.
“Food is costing more, and dollars don’t stretch as far,’’ Sandel said. “It’s hard to maintain a diet that is healthy.’’
The emergency room survey found a similarly striking increase in the percentage of families with children who reported they did not have enough food each month, from 18 percent in 2007 to 28 percent in 2010.
Pediatricians at hospitals in four other cities - Baltimore; Little Rock, Ark.; Minneapolis; and Philadelphia - also reported increases in the ranks of malnourished, hungry youngsters in their emergency rooms since 2008. But Boston’s increases were more dramatic, said Sandel, a lead investigator with Children’s HealthWatch, a network of researchers who track children’s health. Researchers said higher housing and heating costs in Massachusetts probably exacerbated the state’s surge.
BMC has also seen a 58 percent increase, from 24 in 2005 to 38 in 2010, in the number of severely underweight babies under the age of 1 who were referred by family physicians to its Grow Clinic, where doctors provide intensive nutritional, medical, and other services to boost babies’ growth. Such malnourishment is similar to what is more typically seen in developing countries, Sandel said.
Among the children treated at the clinic last year was Jordan Turner-Goode, who at age 1 weighed just 19 pounds, while the average child that age is more than 24 pounds.
“We were living in a hotel in Chelmsford at the time, and it was hard to cook meals because all we had to cook in was a microwave and that wasn’t helping his weight at all,’’ said his mother, Janell Goode. “He was eating cereal, noodles, and eggs in the microwave and hot dogs and fruit snacks.’’
The 27-year-old single Lowell mother, a former telemarketer who is now unemployed, relies on food pantries and other public assistance to feed her three young sons.
Jordan is a healthier weight now, but Goode says it is still a struggle. The family managed to move out of the state-subsidized motel where they were living, but their housing situation is precarious. The owner of the Lowell apartment where they are renting is about to be foreclosed on, Goode said.Continued...
