Arlene Weintraub

The Healthy Happy Meals bill, proposed by NYC council member Benjamin Kallos, would require that fast-food meals marketed with toys or other merchandise meant for kids include a serving of fruit, vegetables or whole grain, with no more than 35% of calories coming from fat. Furthermore, the meals must contain fewer than 10% of calories from saturated fat or added sugar, and they can’t have more than 600 milligrams of sodium.

To determine whether those changes would affect how children eat, a team of researchers from New York University analyzed receipts from 358 purchases made at McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s restaurants in the NYC area. The purchases included 422 meals for children. Not surprisingly, the NYU researchers found that 98% of the meals did not meet the proposed guidelines, according to the paper, published online by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. On average, adults purchased 600 calories per child, and 36% of those calories came from fat.