Children's fast food meals may be healthier if regulated

The battle against unhealthy food continues after a recent study found that despite 95 percent of schools serving healthier meals, a lot of the fruits and vegetables served are tossed into the trash, and not into children's mouths, FOX News reports.

Researchers at the University of Vermont revealed that kids added more fruits and vegetables to their meals, however, "children consumed fewer [fruits and vegetables] and wasted more during the school year immediately following implementation of the USDA rule."

"The architects of the [Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act] want their children and schoolchildren across America to eat healthy, hearty meals," Joe Colangelo, director of the product testing and consumer advocacy organization Consumers’ Research, told FOX News. "Unfortunately, our government does not have a perfect record of influencing the eating habits of American citizens."

A new study was also conducted by Marie Bragg, of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York and co-authors, which revealed that regulating children's fast food meals may help make them healthier.

According to Reuters, the study analyzed food purchases made by 358 adults for 422 children at Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's restaurants in New York City and New Jersey between 2013 to 2014. The report, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, revealed that the adults purchased an average of 600 calories worth of food for each child, and 200 of those calories was fat. The salt content in meals were also more than half of the total daily limit of the American Heart Association, with an average of 869 mg.

Researchers then proposed a new policy to the New York City Council stating that meals which include a small toy must come with a serving of fruit, vegetable, or whole grain, and must not exceed 500 calories. Restrictions on fat and salt would also be implemented.

Results showed that 35 percent of the children ate the kids' meals that included a toy, and that 98 percent of the meals do not meet the proposed standards. If the policy is implemented, children will be consuming 9 percent less calories and less fat and salt.

"It’s a rather small amount in comparison to how bad the country's obesity problem really is," Bragg explained. "There's a lot of value in the incremental changes that can sum up to a great impact with all the other changes occurring in the environment."

"For far too long, fast-food chains such as Wendy's and Burger King have been using toy giveaways to lure children to meals of cheeseburgers, French fries, and sodas and other meals of poor nutritional quality," Margo Wooten of the Center for Science in the Public Interest told NBC News.

Bragg said, "We can create policies that will nudge us toward healthier behaviors. We’re at a point where we have to move the needle and we have to do it with policies like this."