Research & Publications | Healthy Eating Research

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Restaurant kids’ meal beverage offerings before and after implementation of healthy default beverage policy statewide in California compared with citywide in Wilmington, Delaware

In 2019, California and Wilmington, Delaware implemented policies requiring healthier default beverages with restaurant kids’ meals. The current study assessed restaurant beverage offerings and manager perceptions. Pre-implementation, the most common kids’ meal beverages on California menus were unflavored milk and water (78·8 %, 52·0 %); in Wilmington, juice, milk and sugar-sweetened beverages were most common More

Date: April 2021

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Beverages Food Retail

Healthy default beverage policies for kids’ meals: A statewide baseline assessment of restaurant managers’ perceptions and knowledge in Delaware

This study evaluated restaurant managers’ knowledge and support of a healthy default beverage policy in Delaware that had passed, but not yet gone into effect. We conducted structured in-person interviews with managers (n = 50) from full-service and quick-service chain and non-chain restaurants (QSRs) using a stratified random sample. Managers were interviewed about the number More

Date: December 2020

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Beverages Food Retail

Assessing the Implementation of Kids’ Meals Healthy Default Beverage Policies in the State of California and City of Wilmington, Del.

Healthy default beverage (HDB) policies are one policy approach to limiting kids’ sugary drink consumption and encouraging healthier beverage consumption. These policies specifically require restaurants to offer only healthier drinks (e.g., water, milk, 100% juice) instead of sugary drinks as the default options with kids’ meals, a combination of food and drink items sold as More

Date: August 2020

Resource Type: Research Brief

Focus Areas: Beverages Food Retail

Voluntary Kids’ Meal Beverage Standards: Are They Sufficient to Ensure Healthier Restaurant Practices and Consumer Choices?

Many quick-service restaurants (QSRs) instituted voluntary kids’ meal default beverage standards (standards) between 2013 to 2017. Little is known about impacts of standards on QSR drive-through practices and on customer choices. This study assessed differences in restaurant practices including kids’ meal beverages shown on menu boards, offered by cashiers, and selected by customers in QSRs More

Keywords: Fast food, Water

Date: July 2020

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Beverages Food Retail

Evaluating the Policy Impact of Healthy Default Beverages in Children’s Meals: Cross-state Comparison

Beginning January 2019 in California and Wilmington, Delaware, all restaurants selling children’s meals that include a beverage must provide healthy default options (unsweetened water and milk in California; water, milk or 100% juice in Delaware). In December 2018, baseline data on children’s meal beverage options were collected from a sample of fast food restaurants in More

Date: August 2019

Resource Type: Commissioned Research Project Summary

Focus Areas: Beverages Food Retail