Which kids' menus are most likely to make your children fatä A year-long study of children's meals has revealed vast dietary differences among America's favorite fast-food and sit-down chain restaurants, according to the authors of the new book EAT THIS, NOT THAT! For Kids. Co-authors David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding calculated calories, fat (trans- and saturated), and sodium, as well as the average number of calories per children's entree, and discovered that many of America's most popular chain restaurants are nutritional nightmares for America's children.

The authors compared children's entrees; credited restaurants for having healthy adult options that would appeal to the young palate; evaluated healthy vegetable and fruit sides and drink options that go beyond sugar-laden soda; and docked points for restaurants still dishing out unhealthy trans fats or for refusing to release any nutrition information to their customers.

The result is a Restaurant Report Card that holds each food chain accountable for the fare they're serving up — to moms, dads, kids, teens, and everybody else — along with a survival strategy for making it through any meal unscathed.

Did your favorite restaurant make the gradeä

A

Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A excels in every category we tested for. With a slew of low-calorie sandwiches, the country's “healthiest” chicken nugget, a variety of solid sides like fresh fruit and soup that can be substituted into any meal, and nutritional brochures readily available for perusing at each location, Chick-fil-A earns the award for America's Healthiest Chain Restaurant (for kids, for the adults who drive them there, plus anybody else wise enough to make it their fast food choice).

Your Survival Strategy: Even the smartest kid in the class can still fail a test, so be on your toes at all times, even at Chik-fil-A. Limit salads with ranch or Caesar dressings, any sandwich with bacon, and make milkshakes a special treat, not an everyday beverage.

A-

Subway

A menu based on lean protein and vegetables is always going to score well in our book. With more than half a dozen sandwiches under 300 calories, plus a slew of soups and healthy sides to boot, Subway can satisfy even the pickiest eater without breaking the caloric bank.

But, despite what Jared may want you to believe, Subway is not nutritionally infallible: Those rosy calorie counts posted on the menu boards include neither cheese nor mayo (add 160 calories per 6-inch sub) and some of the toasted subs, like the Meatball Marinara, contain hefty doses of calories, saturated fat, and sodium.

Your Survival Strategy: Cornell researchers have discovered a “health halo” at Subway, which refers to the tendency to reward yourself or your kid with chips, cookies, and large soft drinks because the entree is healthy. Avoid the halo, and all will be well.

B+

Boston Market

With more than a dozen healthy vegetable sides and lean meats like turkey and roast sirloin on the menu, the low-cal, high-nutrient possibilities at Boston Market are endless. But with nearly a dozen calorie-packed sides and fatty meats like dark meat chicken and meat loaf (which contains an unfathomable 55 ingredients!), it's almost as easy to construct a lousy meal.

Your Survival Strategy: There are three simple steps to nutritional salvation: 1) Start with turkey, sirloin, or rotisserie chicken. 2) Add two noncreamy, nonstarchy vegetable sides. 3) Ignore all special items, such as pot pie and nearly all of the sandwiches.

B

McDonald's

Though not blessed with an abundance of healthy options, Mickey D's isn't burdened with any major calorie bombs, either. Kid standards like McNuggets and cheeseburgers are both in the acceptable 300-calorie range.

Your Survival Strategy: Apple Dippers and 2% milk with a small entree makes for a pretty decent meal-on-the-go. McDonald's quintessential Happy Meal(R) makes this possible — just beware the usual French fries and soda pitfalls. Adults should go for a Quarter Pounder without cheese.

C+

Domino's

Domino's suffers the same pitfalls of any other pizza purveyor: too much cheese, bread, and greasy toppings. If you don't order carefully, your child's pizza might come laden with more than 350 calories per slice. To its credit, Domino's does keep the trans fat out of the pizza, and it also offers the lowest-calorie thin crust option out there.

Your Survival Strategy: Stick with the Crunchy Thin Crust pizzas sans sausage and pepperoni. If your must order meat, ask for ham. And whenever possible, try to sneak on a vegetable or two per pie.

C

Burger King

BK has only four legitimate kids' entrees on the menu, and none of them — French Toast Sticks, hamburger, mac and cheese, chicken tenders — are particularly healthy. And while the recent addition of Apple Fries provides a much-needed healthy side alternative for kids, the menu is still sullied with trans fats. BK pledged to follow in the wake of nearly every other chain restaurant and remove trans fats from the menu by the end of 2008, but so far, we've seen little action. In fact, a large order of Hash Browns has an outrageous 13 grams of the heart-threatening fat, and even an order of Cini-minis will add 4.5 grams of trans fats to your kid's breakfast.

Your Survival Strategy: Adults can sign on for the Whopper Junior and a Garden Salad, and escape with only 365 calories. The best kids' mealä A 4-piece Chicken Tenders(R), applesauce or Apple Fries, and water or milk. Beyond that, there is little hope of escaping unscathed.

D

Chipotle

We applaud Chipotle's commitment to high-quality produce and fresh meats, but even the most pristine ingredients can't limit the damage wrought by the massive portion sizes the chain serves up. The lack of options for kids means young eaters are forced to tussle with one of Chipotle's behemoth burritos or taco platters, which can easily top 1,000 calories. Don't think you'll escape by ordering up a salad, either — even a leafy bowl at Chipotle can knock out more than half a day's worth of calories.

Your Survival Strategy: Stick to the crispy tacos or burrito bowls, or saw a burrito in thirds.

F

Applebee's, IHOP, Olive Garden, Outback, Red Lobster, T.G.I. Friday's

These titans of the restaurant industry are among the last national chains that don't provide nutritional information on their dishes. Even after years of communication with their representatives, we still hear the same old excuses: it's too pricey, it's too time-consuming, it's impossible to do accurately because their food is so fresh. Our response is simple: If every other chain restaurant in the country can do it, then why can't theyä Recent New York legislation requiring these restaurants to run calorie counts on their menus gave diners a glimpse of what these establishments are hiding: At Friday's, no fewer than nine sandwiches and ten appetizers topple the 1000-calorie barrier; at IHOP, the “healthiest” entree-size salad has a staggering 1050 calories; and at Outback, even a simple order of salmon will wipe out 75% of your day's caloric allotment.

Your Survival Strategy: Write letters, make phone calls, beg, scream, and plead for these restaurants to provide nutritional information on all of their products. Ask them why they refuse to tell us the truth!

For a comprehensive A-to-F breakdown on 30 other chain restaurants — plus the best and worst meals at each — see the complete EAT THIS, NOT THAT! For Kids Restaurant Report Card at eatthis.com/restaurants.

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A reader, Star Lawrence, who belongs to a local writers group, reports:

“I got a telephone call from Examiner.com about their blogging work–it wasn’t too switft, blog for clicks sort of. Since I could change my daily health item in about a second and post it, I thought, well, maybe…Then they sent the forms–they wanted to do a criminal background check on writers. It said not a credit check, but there was info on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so I was dubious on that count, too. We should be checking THEIR criminal records, some of these so-called employers. No way!”

Star Lawrence

http://healthsass.blogspot.com

_______________________________________

Here is a copy of the e-mail Examiner sent to Star in an effort to recruit her:

Hi Star, Thanks for the phone chat, and first of all, congratulations on being approved to be an Examiner!

My name is George Shirk, a regional content editor at Examiner.com. I work with Molly Gilford, the program manager. Together, we’re in charge of getting you all set up with your page and profile. You may have already received an email with the instructions below, but we wanted to reach out to say hi, and welcome you to the team as well.

If you haven’t already done the following, please email the material listed below directly to Molly so she can be sure it gets into the right hands. About the background check: Examiner.com is doing a background check on all Examiners in order to make sure no one writing on the site might use the site for criminal activity.

This is not a check on credit, employment or anything other than criminal stuff. It is attached.

About compensation: We pay .50 per 1,000 page views. We do this through PayPal and you get paid when you hit the minimum threshold. This site is scaled to get very big, so we expect traffic to be excellent as we grow. Having said that, we’d like you to do two things to get you started:

1. Smile for the camera! If you;ve taken a look at the Examiners on the site, you’ll see that they all have a photo of themselves on their page. Please make sure it is horizontal/ landscape as opposed to portrait. If you send a close up which is vertical, when we go to crop, we end up having to take off some of the top of your head, or your chin (so that’s why we specify wider than it is tall. Just so you know, it ends up being 90 pixels wide by 75 pixels tall. We will resize the photo for you, just please send it as an attachment and not embedded in the email.

2. We also would like to have a bio of 35 words or less (right in the body of the email is preferable, as opposed to an attachment, but either will work). This bio will be placed next to your picture and will tell readers who you are and what you talk about on your page.

There’s really no reason to tell people where you went to school or your whole life story, a simple statement of your experience and your topic will work fine, but do make sure to give readers a sense that you are credible. Here are examples of a bad bio and the same bio done the right way:

a. John Johnson attended The University of Texas at Austin from 1982-1986 and got a BA in Fine Arts. He went on to get his Masters in Film from NYU in 1989. He has loved film since he was a child when he first saw ‘Gone With The Wind’ on NBC over Thanksgiving. Now, he has a successful film studio and makes a living critiquing films for publications like The New York Times, US Weekly, and Newsweek. Come along with John as he takes you on a ride through the American cinematic landscape.

b. John Johnson loved film from on early age, so much so that he got a Masters degree in the topic. Now, he works in the film industry and writes reviews for major publications. When it comes to movies, John’s your go-to guy. Also attached is a background form that we use to check criminal background (make sure you check “no” to any other questions on the form. The form goes directly to Molly, so don’t worry about safety in sending it. She is very careful and keeps them locked away at all times. You can print it out, fill it in, sign it and then either scan it and email it to her at mgilford@examiner.com, or if you prefer, you can fax it to 303-299-1505.

The fax comes directly to her desk, so there is no need for a cover sheet. If you have already sent it, please ignore this portion of the email.

Again, congratulations! We are all very excited to have you as a new examiner and we’re eager to get you up and running as soon as possible. As soon as we can get you up and live on the site, the better. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or Molly.

Her email address is mgilford@examiner.com, and my own contact information is below.

george

George Shirk | Content Director Examiner.com/ San Francisco

gshirk@examiner.com 760-965-4268 (Skype)

Yahoo IM: george.hawkeye52

——————————————————————————————–

Here is a copy of the credit report that Examiner asked to do on Star:

Consent to Procure Consumer Report

Notice of Intent to Procure Consumer Report (Background Check)

Pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1681

procedure for employment, promotion or retention, we may obtain and review consumer report(s) and/or investigative consumer

report(s) for employment purposes concerning you (Background Check). These report(s) will be obtained through the following

Consumer Reporting Agency:

Louisiana driving history records (DMV/MVR) will be obtained through ADR (American Driving Records). You have the right to

make a written request, within a reasonable period of time after receiving this notice, for additional disclosures as to the nature and

scope of any consumer report(s) we obtain. You are also entitled to receive a copy of the Federal Trade Commission’s

publication, “A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act” which you will find attached to this document.

You may have additional rights under state law.

et seq., this notice is to inform you that as part of our evaluationFrasco® Profiles, 215 W. Alameda Avenue, Burbank, CA, 91502; Phone: (800) 820-9029.

Authorization to Conduct Background Check:

By signing below, I authorize Frasco

results to the employer named below. I understand this report may contain information as to my character, general reputation,

personal characteristics, or mode of living, such as my work habits, work performance and experience, reasons for discipline or

termination from any current or prior employment, history of earnings, credit worthiness, credit standing or credit capacity,

criminal history, civil history, driving history, and other related matters that may concern my eligibility for the position or

promotion I am seeking. Frasco® Profiles will not provide any information where such disclosure is restricted by federal or state

law.

By signing below, I authorize any present or past employer, supervisor or agent of the employer; high school, college, university or

other institution of learning; local, state or federal court; department of motor vehicles, military branch or the national personnel

records center; state sex offender registry, state licensing board, state workers’ compensation agency, credit bureau, personal or

professional reference; to release records or information to Frasco

history, social security number, earnings history, credit file, address history, educational history, character, reputation, and

employment (including documented reasons for termination or discipline) and release such from any and all liability for any

damage that may result from the furnishing of this information. This authorization shall be valid in original, faxed or photocopied

form. This authorization shall expire upon termination of my employment with the employer named below.

® Profiles, to conduct an employment-related free background check on me and to provide the® Profiles concerning my name, criminal history, motor vehicle

Report to be Released to: THE ANSCHUTZ CORPORATION & EXAMINER

Applicant Name:

Any other Names used for Employment or Education:

Applicant Address:

Social Security Number: Date of Birth:

Driver’s License Number: State:

May we contact your current employer?

Signature: Date:

? YES ? NO ? Not Currently Employed

* I understand that if the above named employer requests a copy of my consumer report for employment purposes, I have the right

under

understand that by checking “yes” below, a copy will be provided to me at the address I provided above.

receive a copy of my consumer report (background check) (CA, MN, OK only) ? Yes ? No

215 W. Alameda Ave.

Burbank, CA 91505

(800) 820-9029

www.frascoprofiles.com

Para informacion en espanol, visite www.ftc.gov/credit o escribe a la FTC Consumer Response Center, Room 130-A 600

Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. , Washington, D.C. 20580.

A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promotes the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of information in the files

of consumer reporting agencies. There are many types of consumer reporting agencies, including credit bureaus and specialty

agencies (such as agencies that sell information about check writing histories, medical records, and rental history records).

Here is a summary of your major rights under the FCRA.

rights, go to www.ftc.gov/credit or write to: Consumer Response Center, Room 130-A, Federal Trade Commission, 600

Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.

For more information, including information about additional

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type of consumer report to deny your application for credit, insurance, or employment – or to take another adverse action

against you – must tell you, and must give you the name, address, and phone number of the agency that provided the

information.

You must be told if information in your file has been used against you. Anyone who uses a credit report or another

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a consumer reporting agency (your “file disclosure”). You will be required to provide proper identification, which may

include your Social Security number. In many cases, the disclosure will be free. You are entitled to a free file disclosure if:

You have the right to know what is in your file. You may request and obtain all the information about you in the files of

?

a person has taken adverse action against you because of information in your credit report;

?

you are the victim of identity theft and place a fraud alert in your file;

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your file contains inaccurate information as a result of fraud;

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you are on public assistance;

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In addition, by September 2005 all consumers will be entitled to one free disclosure every 12 months upon request from

each nationwide credit bureau and from nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies. See www.ftc.gov/credit for

additional information.

you are unemployed but expect to apply for employment within 60 days.

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information from credit bureaus. You may request a credit score from consumer reporting agencies that create scores or

distribute scores used in residential real property loans, but you will have to pay for it. In some mortgage transactions, you

will receive credit score information for free from the mortgage lender.

You have the right to ask for a credit score. Credit scores are numerical summaries of your credit-worthiness based on

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incomplete or inaccurate, and report it to the consumer reporting agency, the agency must investigate unless your dispute is

frivolous. See www.ftc.gov/credit for an explanation of dispute procedures.

You have the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information. If you identify information in your file that is

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incomplete or unverifiable information must be removed or corrected, usually within 30 days. However, a consumer

reporting agency may continue to report information it has verified as accurate.

Consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information. Inaccurate,

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agency may not report negative information that is more than seven years old, or bankruptcies that are more than 10 years

old.

Consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information. In most cases, a consumer reporting

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valid need – usually to consider an application with a creditor, insurer, employer, landlord, or other business. The FCRA

specifies those with a valid need for access.

Access to your file is limited. A consumer reporting agency may provide information about you only to people with a

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information about you to your employer, or a potential employer, without your written consent given to the employer.

Written consent generally is not required in the trucking industry. For more information, go to www.ftc.gov/credit.

You must give your consent for reports to be provided to employers. A consumer reporting agency may not give out

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You may limit “prescreened” offers of credit and insurance you get based on information in your credit report.

Unsolicited “prescreened” offers for credit and insurance must include a toll-free phone number you can call if you choose

to remove your name and address from the lists these offers are based on. You may opt-out with the nationwide credit

bureaus at 1-888-567-8688.

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a furnisher of information to a consumer reporting agency violates the FCRA, you may be able to sue in state or federal

court.

You may seek damages from violators. If a consumer reporting agency, or, in some cases, a user of consumer reports or

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www.ftc.gov/credit.

Identity theft victims and active duty military personnel have additional rights. For more information, visit

States may enforce the FCRA, and many states have their own consumer reporting laws. In some cases, you may have

more rights under state law. For more informat
on, contact your state or local consumer protection agency or your

state Attorney General. Federal enforcers are:

TYPE OF BUSINESS: CONTACT:

Consumer reporting agencies, creditors and others not listed below Federal Trade Commission: Consumer Response Center – FCRA

Washington, DC 20580 1-877-382-4357

National banks, federal branches/agencies of foreign banks (word

“National” or initials “N.A.” appear in or after bank’s name)

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Compliance Management, Mail Stop 6-6

Washington, DC 20219 1-800-613-6743

Federal Reserve System member banks (except national banks, and

federal branches/agencies of foreign banks)

Federal Reserve Board

Division of Consumer & Community Affairs

Washington, DC 20551 1-202-452-3693

Savings associations and federally chartered savings banks (word

“Federal” or initials “F.S.B.” appear in federal institution’s name)

Office of Thrift Supervision

Consumer Complaints

Washington, DC 20552 1-800-842-6929

Federal credit unions (words “Federal Credit Union” appear in

institution’s name)

National Credit Union Administration

1775 Duke Street

Alexandria, VA 22314 1-703-519-4600

State-chartered banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve

System

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Consumer Response Center, 2345 Grand Avenue, Suite 100

Kansas City, Missouri 64108-2638 1-877-275-3342

Air, surface, or rail common carriers regulated by former Civil

Aeronautics Board or Interstate Commerce Commission

Department of Transportation, Office of Financial Management

Washington, DC 20590 1-202-366-1306

Activities subject to the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921 Department of Agriculture

Office of Deputy Administrator – GIPSA

Washington, DC 20250 1-202-720-7051

California, Minnesota, and Oklahoma law to receive a copy of that consumer report from the employer free of charge. II would like to

AUTHORIZATION TO CONDUCT BACKGROUND CHECK