Not All is Healthy in Children’s Hospitals?
The author of a recent study in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that “efforts are needed to balance the dietary choices and social messages” sent by locating fast food restaurants in children’s hospitals. Oh, yeah.
Many hospitals, including children’s hospitals, house fast food outlets. The Reuters Health report on this study highlighted the belief that this encourages people “to view the fare as healthier than it probably is”. And with fast food being linked to the growing childhood obesity epidemic, it becomes one of those things that should make us step back and say “what’s wrong with this picture?”. Does the picture seem fuzzy, though, due to the fact that McDonalds, the main children’s hospital fast food vendor, provides financial support to some of the hospitals?
I’m glad to see this phenomenon being studied and reported. What does it take to move from this to action, I wonder?
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