Now Accepting Children

A. Books and other educational materials
B. DVDs, CDs, music downloads, and trips to the movies
C. Video games
D. Fast food

You're probably not surprised to discover that the right answer is D. But you might be surprised to discover that, if you're a parent, you will most likely spend more on fast food this year than on A, B, and C combined.

Restaurants are no more kind to our children's health and well-being than they are to our own: The typical burger, soda, and fries that you and I ate as kids contains an average of 214 more calories today than that same meal did in the 1970s — enough to add at least 3 pounds of weight a year to your child's body, even if he or she ate that fast-food meal just once a week.

Indeed, some of the nutritional stats in the foods restaurants are selling as "kids' meals" are terrifying. A grilled cheese with as much fat as 25 strips of bacon? A child-size dessert with more than half a day's worth of calories? And the supermarket aisles offer little salvation.

As a result, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled since 1980 — today, 16 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight or obese. An additional 15 percent of kids are "at risk of becoming overweight or obese."

Seventy percent of overweight adolescents end up overweight or obese in adulthood. And since obesity increases your odds of heart attack, stroke, and early death, consider the impact of an entire generation of overweight children on our country's health care system — and families. It's a chilling thought, especially if one of those children is your own. That's why we've created this list, to help your family make smarter choices today for a healthier tomorrow.

Worst sweetened cereal

20. Cap'n Crunch (1 cup)
146 calories
2 g fat (1 g saturated)
16 g sugars
1 g fiber

The Cap'n's cereal is the archetypal hypersweetened breakfast. It didn't make our list by its abundance of fat or calories; it made the list by being among the dominant sources of empty calories in a child's diet. Aside from the small amount of added vitamins, which are mandated by the government, this cereal is a food scientist's concoction of worthless foodlike particles and chemicals. Corn flour makes up the bulk of each crunch, and sugar, brown sugar, and coconut oil hold it together. This cereal is also coated with loads of the food colorings yellow 6 and 5, which have been linked to irritability and poor behavior in children.

Eat this instead!
Cascadian Farm Clifford Crunch (1 cup)
100 calories
1 g fat (0 g saturated)
25 g carbohydrates
6 g sugars

Worst packaged snack

19. Austin Cheese Crackers with Cheddar Jack Cheese (1 package)
210 calories
10 g fat (2 g saturated, 4 g trans)
370 mg sodium

The calorie count is the least of your concerns with these ubiquitous orange cracker snacks. They made the list because each package contains 2 days' worth of trans fats. Most of the food industry has figured out how to make foods free of these nasty lipids (which have been proven to raise bad cholesterol); we suggest Austin do the same.

Eat this instead!
Laughing Cow Mini Babybel
70 calories
6 g fat (4 g saturated)
170 mg sodium

Worst beverage

18. SunnyD Smooth Style (16 ounces)
260 calories
60 g sugars

Remember those commercials where the kid with SunnyD in the fridge always had the coolest mom? What they didn't tell you was that Mom's love of the orange stuff was quietly undermining her kid's well-being. Don't mistake SunnyD for OJ; there's just 5 percent real juice in this bottle, which means the other 95 percent is well-marketed sugar water. Do you really want your child slurping down the sugar equivalent of a dozen Chips Ahoy cookies?

Drink this instead!
Capri Sun Tropical Fruit Roarin' Water (6.8 ounces)
35 calories
0 g fat
9 g sugars

Worst side

17. Bob Evans Smiley Face Potatoes
524 calories
31 g fat (6 g saturated)
646 mg sodium

These incessantly smiling potatoes are more than just creepy; they're more fat- and calorie-packed than Bob's Sirloin Steak. Let this be a lesson to you youngsters: Just because they're smiling doesn't make them nice.

Eat this instead!
Home Fries
159 calories
3 g fat (1 g saturated)
533 mg sodium

Worst PB&J

16. Atlanta Bread Company Peanut Butter & Jelly
550 calories
15 g fat (3.5 g saturated)
690 mg sodium
34 g sugars

Apparently it's a bad idea to stick an American classic on French bread. How else could we explain a 550-calorie peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Toss some chips onto that plate and you've got a meal that can quickly make a small child big. Make this meal at home instead and you not only save a ton of money, but you can also cut the caloric load by half.

Eat this instead!
Kids Cheese Pizza
300 calories
7 g fat (3.5 g saturated)
660 mg sodium

Worst mall snack

15. Auntie Anne's Pepperoni Pretzel Pocket
650 calories
27 g fat (12 g saturated)
1,120 mg sodium
11 g sugars

Oversize pretzels are already precarious, because they pack a ton of empty carbohydrates. So stuffing a pretzel with sausage is wrapping barbed wire around a fire ax. It will take more than a day of walking around the mall for your kid to burn off all the fat in this greasy fat sponge. (Better warm up that credit card!)

Eat this instead!
Pretzel Dog
360 calories
20 g fat (9 g saturated)
740 mg sodiumWorst sandwich

14. Au Bon Pain Kids' Grilled Cheese
670 calories
41 g fat (25 g saturated)
1,060 mg sodium

You wouldn't even consider feeding your child this if they called it by its real name: an oil sandwich with cheese. So soaked is this sandwich that you'd need to eat 25 strips of cooked bacon to equal the amount of saturated fat found between the two slices. Wait until you get home — in about 5 minutes you can make a pretty mean 300-calorie grilled cheese sandwich.

Eat this instead!
Kids' Macaroni and Cheese
250 calories
14 g fat (9 g saturated)
690 mg sodium

Worst prepared lunch

13. Oscar Mayer Maxed Out Turkey & Cheddar Cracker Combo Lunchables
680 calories
22 g fat (9 g saturated)
61 g sugars
1,440 mg sodium

Lunchables has established itself as the prepackaged lunch choice for kids, but just because your kids love Lunchables doesn't mean Lunchables loves your kids. The Maxed Out line is the worst of the lot; Oscar Mayer packs this one with nearly half of an 8-year-old's daily calorie allotment and sweetens it with more than twice the sugar and fat of most candy bars.

Eat this instead!
Hillshire Farm Deli Wrap Smokehouse Ham & Swiss Wrap Kit
260 calories
11 g fat (4 g saturated)
960 mg sodium

Worst dessert

12. Uno Chicago Grill Kid's Sundae
860 calories
38 g fat (20 g saturated)
94 g sugars

Consider the repercussions of slapping three Baby Ruth bars' worth of fat and sugar onto the end of your child's meal. Weighing in at an astounding 3/4 pound, this abominable sundae is twice as big as the Kid's Pasta, and twice as caloric as a child's entire meal should be.

Eat this instead!
Kid's Slush
70 calories
0 g fat

17 g sugars

Worst burger

11. Ruby Tuesday Kids Turkey Minis & Fries
873 calories
46 g fat
88 g carbohydrates

When we first pointed out how bad this restaurant kids' meal was, Ruby Tuesday sprang into action, shrinking the meal down to save ... a total of 20 calories. That's not going to help your child fight obesity and all the health problems that can come with it, not when these mini burgers still have more calories than a Wendy's formidable Baconator. The best solution? Avoid Ruby's burgers entirely. Chicken and broccoli, at just 201 calories, is best, but the chop steak plate is like eating a burger without the bun (not to mention all those excess calories).

Eat this instead!
Chop Steak & Mashed Potatoes
403 calories
30 g fat
15 g carbohydrates

Worst homestyle meal

10. Boston Market's Kids' Meat Loaf with Sweet Potato Casserole and Cornbread
890 calories
46.5 g fat (17.5 g saturated)
131 g carbohydrates
1,500 mg sodium

This is not your mother's meat loaf — and that's too bad. This slab-o-meat begins as beef and ends as a science project with 55 ingredients that include the understandable (cheese cultures), the detestable (partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil), and the unpronounceable (azodicarbonamide). Stack the amalgamation next to a sugar-and-cream-injected sweet potato and a starchy piece of cornbread and you're asking your kid to be the lab rat. We can tell you right now, the results will be big. Roast turkey provides a safe haven for discerning eaters.

Eat this instead!
Kids' Roasted Turkey with Green Bean Casserole and Cornbread
390 calories
9 g fat (3 g saturated)
36 g carbohydrates
1,045 mg sodium

Worst pasta meal

9. Romano's Macaroni Grill Fettuccine Alfredo
890 calories
67 g fat (38 g saturated)
1,480 mg sodium

This plate of noodles has 2 days' worth of saturated fat — for a full-grown adult! For a kid, this could serve as a precursor for obesity. And to make matters worse, Macaroni Grill likes to throw in a free ice cream with every kids' meal. They sure don't make it easy to be a responsible parent.

Eat this instead!
Cheeseoli
440 calories
20 g fat (12 g saturated)
1,280 mg sodium

Worst Mexican meal

8. On the Border Kids Bean and Cheese Nachos
980 calories
57 g fat (29 g saturated)
1,850 mg sodium

On the Border's Beef Soft Taco meal has been downsized just enough to keep it from topping our list this year. But we've spotted several other troubling dishes in the kids' domain, especially this plate of nachos. It's hard to imagine how chips, cheese, and beans are transformed into a day and a half worth of saturated fat, but once you see the train wrecks on the adult side of the menu, you begin to understand.

Eat this instead!
Kids' Grilled Chicken with black beans
310 calories
9 g fat (3 g saturated)
1,230 mg sodium

7. Uno Chicago Grill Kid's Deep Dish Pepperoni Pizza
980 calories
70 g fat (20 g saturated)
1,860 mg sodium

We analyzed every kids' pizza in every chain restaurant in America, and these sloppy slices beat out the next closest competitor by 27 grams of fat. Calorie-wise, it's like eating more than two whole boxes of Bagel Bites.

Eat this instead!
Macaroni and Cheese
480 calories
16 g fat (5 g saturated)
1,200 mg sodium

Worst chicken meal

6. Chili's Pepper Pals Little Chicken Crispers with Ranch and Homestyle Fries
1,010 calories
75 g fat (13 g saturated)
1,780 mg sodium

A moderately active 8-year-old boy should eat around 1,600 calories a day. This single meal plows through about 65 percent of that allotment. Unless he plans on munching on nothing but celery the rest of the day, he ought to plan on skipping the country-fried crispers.

Eat this instead!
Pepper Pals Grilled Chicken Platter with Cinnamon Apples
340 calories
8 g fat (2.5 g saturated)
755 mg sodium

Worst finger food

5. Denny's Little Dipper Sampler with Honey Mustard Dressing Dipping Sauce and Deep Space French Fries
1,030 calories
61 g fat (15 g saturated)
1,590 mg sodium

Nuggets, mozzarella sticks, and fries make an unholy trinity of sodium and saturated fat. Parents can choose the convenience of giving their tots something that doesn't require a fork to eat, but not if it delivers two-thirds of the kid's daily calories.

Eat this instead!
Moons & Stars Chicken Nuggets with BBQ Sauce and Moon Crater Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
430 calories
17 g fat (3.5 g saturated)
1,480 mg sodium

Worst drink

4. Baskin-Robbins Small Snickers Shake
1,040 calories
50 g fat
(26 g saturated, 1 g trans)
112 g sugars

Baskin-Robbins has a whole line of these candy-themed shakes to help nudge your child toward a lifetime of elevated blood sugar. How they manage to fit so much fat and sugar into a 16-ounce cup is a mystery of modern food science. This one's the equivalent of nearly 4 whole Snickers bars. You're better off giving your kid the real candy.

Drink this instead!
Small Strawberry Citrus Fruit Blast
350 calories
1 g fat (0 g saturated)
85 g sugars

Worst drive-thru meal

3. Burger King Kids' Double Cheeseburger with Small Fries and Coke
1,100 calories
52 g fat (17.5 g saturated, 1.5 g trans)
1,870 mg sodium

BK's double beef earns the distinction of being the fattest meal for an on-the-go kid. It has 18 more grams of fat than the same meal at McDonald's. The meal might be quick, but it takes a long time for a 90-pound child to burn all those calories.

Eat this instead!
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with Apple Fries, Caramel Dipping Sauce, and Low-Fat Milk
340 calories
8 g fat (3 g saturated)
505 mg sodium

Worst Chinese entree

2. P.F. Chang's Crispy Honey Chicken on Brown Rice
1,210 calories
51 g fat (9 g saturated)
610 mg sodium

Although P.F. Chang's doesn't offer a proper kids' menu, this is the item it identifies on its menu as the "Kids' #1 Favorite." As a single entrée, this dish will saddle your child with two-thirds of her day's calories and nearly an entire day's worth of fat. They put the lazy Susan on the tables at Chang's for a reason; these dishes need to be shared.

Eat this instead!
Almond and Cashew Chicken on Brown Rice
294 calories
10 g fat (2 g saturated)
1,694 mg sodium

The worst kids' meal in America

1. Uno Chicago Grill Kids' Kombo with French Fries
1,250 calories
79 g fat (11.5 g saturated)
2,850 mg sodium

For food marketers, the color of money isn't green — it's beige. Any parent knows that most foods kids clamor for, from fries to white bread to chicken nuggets, come in beige. It's also a marker of cheap, calorie-rich, nutritionally bankrupt foodstuffs. So when you see this monochromatic cluster of cheese sticks, dinosaur-shaped chicken, and fried potatoes, you know your kid's in trouble. Make it a rule when eating out: All dishes must come with at least two colors (and ketchup doesn't count).

Eat this instead!
Kids Pasta
300 calories
3 g fat (0 g saturated)
270 mg sodium