Soda Still on the Menu

July 2019

Soda Still on the Menu: Progress, but More to Do to Get Soda off Restaurant Children's Menus

REPORT WRITTEN BY: Sara Ribakove and Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc. Center for Science in the Public Interest

Soda Still on the Menu: Progress, but More to Do to Get Soda off Restaurant Children's Menus

About the Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI is America's food and health watchdog. We are a rigorous driver of food system change to support healthy eating, safe food, and the public's health. We transform the built food environment through leading-edge policy innovations grounded in meticulous research and powerful advocacy. We galvanize allies and challenge industry, driving system-wide changes and healthier norms for everyone, leveraging the greatest benefits for people facing the greatest risk. CSPI is fiercely independent; we accept no government or corporate grants.

Acknowledgments Peter Lurie, Julia McCarthy, Andrea McGowan, Laura MacCleery, Darya Minovi, and Jillian Morgan provided valuable suggestions and review of the report, for

which we are grateful. For more information, contact: Center for Science in the Public Interest

policy@ 202-777-8352

Soda Still on the Menu is available online, free of charge at KidsMealSoda2019

July 2019

Cover Photos: LightField Studios/ (top left), andresr/ (top right), yacobchuk/ (bottom left), mustafagull/ (bottom right).

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Soda Still on the Menu: Progress, but More to Do to Get Soda off Restaurant Children's Menus

Executive Summary

Americans are eating out more frequently than in the past. Half of all food expenditures are now for restaurant and other awayfrom-home food.1 Eating out has nutrition and health consequences for adults, but children are especially vulnerable. When children eat out, they typically consume more calories, added sugars, and sugary drinks and fewer fruits, vegetables, and whole grains than when they eat at home.2 Children get a quarter of their calories, on average, from restaurant food and beverages.3

The Center for Science in the Public Interest previously analyzed the nutritional quality of children's meals at the top 50 restaurant chains in 2008,4 2012,5 and 2016.6 In this report, we examine how the children's menu beverage offerings at the top 50 restaurant chains have changed over the last decade.

The availability of sugary beverages like soda, lemonade, sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, and other beverages with added sugars on children's menus at the top 50 chains decreased from 93 percent in 2008, to 83 percent in 2012, to 74 percent in 2016,7 to 61 percent in 2019.

Figure 1: Top 50 Restaurant Chains Offering Sugary Drinks on Children's Menus

Percent of Top 50 Restaurant Chains with Children's Beverages

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

93% 2008

83% 2012

74%*

61%*

2016

2019

* significance compared to 2008 using chi-square test, p ................
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