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Summary: New research suggests that having fast-food restaurants in children's hospitals have influenced patients and the hospital to eat at them and it makes the patients think it is healthy to eat at the restaurants. Study has found that more than 59 of the nation's 250 children's hospitals have fast-food restaurants. That is a disturbing phenomenon, which is allowing obesity rates to increase, Dr. Hannah Sahud said, a pediatrician at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. "We're giving two different messages by being in the health care profession and promoting health and saying obesity is a huge medical problem ... and then implicitly encouraging it," she said.
In the U.S. about 17 percent of the children are considered overweight or obese. Doctors think that the cause of this is the heavy consumption of Calorie-laden food which fast food has. While at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, Sahud found out that there is a McDonald's inside the hospital and another just across the street. Study also found that parents that have children treated in a hospital that has a McDonald's will more likely buy McDonald's that day, then a hospital with no McDonald's in it. Parents that had their children treated at Children's Hospital were also more likely to rate McDonald's food healthy than other parents who had their kids treated at a different hospital.
"I was shocked ... that they actually perceive it to be healthier," Sahud said. "Hospitals should be walking the walk, not just talking the talk," said Dr. Sarah Barlow, an obesity specialist at Saint Louis University and Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. Julie Pesch a spokeswomen for Children's Memorial said that the hospital chose McDonald's many years ago as a special treat for sick kids going through harsh treatments. Researchers found that 59 out of 200 residency programs, 30 percent, had fast-food restaurants in the hospital. McDonald's alone and some other fast-food restaurants had 22 in the hospitals. Researchers also surveyed 386 parents and other adults leaving three Chicago-area hospitals after their kids had been treated visits. The study found that 56 percent the children that were treated at Children's Memorial Hospital and eaten fast food on the day of the survey. Ronald McDonald had 29 percent and the University of Chicago had 33 percent. Bill Whitman, a spokesman, said that McDonald's has restaurants in over 30 U.S. hospitals.
"McDonald's menu provides customers with a wide variety of menu choices, including fruits, vegetables, mixed greens, 100 percent USDA-inspected hamburgers ... many of the same foods that we find in our refrigerators and cupboards at home," Whitman said. Cleveland Clinic tried to remove a McDonald's from their hospital two years ago. Their efforts failed but the restaurant is offering healthier food than fries and Big Macs.
Personal Reaction: I thought this article was important because research found that there are fast-food restaurants in children's hospitals. I think fast food restaurants should be removed from the hospitals because hospitals are suppose to be teaching kids not to eat too much fast food and treat them for their problems that they have. What I would do is try to or remove all the fast food restaurants from hospitals and put in something else that could help the children feel better. My prediction for the future is that all fast food restaurants will be removed from hospitals and maybe a learning center about food will be replacing the restaurants.
