Default Drink Options in Kids' Meals

Setting Default Drink Options for Kids' Meals at City of Golden Food Establishments

Golden Healthy Kids' Meals is a potential city ordinance that would create a new standard for drinks offered by all food establishments in the City of Golden that have a bundled children's meal (a kids' meal with a drink included in the price of the meal). This ordinance would set the default drink option included in kids' meals to unsweetened milk or water.

The potential ordinance is not a ban on other beverages. The potential ordinance does not prohibit a restaurant from including other drinks at no additional cost or for a fee. Parents may request a non-standard drink, which the restaurant can choose to include at no additional cost or for a fee.

Why target sugary drinks?

Over the past 30 years, the obesity rate in the United States has more than doubled. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two-thirds (68.5%) of American adults are overweight or obese. In 2019, 23.8% of Jefferson County adult residents and 16.8% of Jefferson County children were overweight or obese. Obese children are at least twice as likely as non-obese children to become obese adults. Hispanic and Black children are disproportionately targeted by the sugary beverage industry through advertisement. In Colorado, Hispanic and Black Children ages 1 - 14 are almost twice as likely to consume one or more sugary drinks per day.

Sugary drinks play a critical role in the obesity epidemic. Sugary drinks, including soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, sweetened water, and fruit drinks, provide the largest source of daily calories in the diets of American children ages 2 to 18. Each extra serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage consumed a day increases a child's risk of becoming obese by 60 percent. Sugary drinks are also linked to other health problems, including the following:

• Greater risk of cardiovascular disease in adolescents
• Higher blood pressure in adolescents
• Dental care issues
• Inadequate intake of nutrients, including calcium, iron, folate, magnesium, and vitamin A

Obesity-related health conditions have serious economic costs. Annual health care costs from obesity are at least 190 billion dollars--roughly 21 percent of total health care spending--and are expected to rise substantially. Roughly 40 percent of these costs are paid through Medicare and Medicaid, which means that taxpayers pay for much of these costs.