Wilmington Council passes measure that requires healthier beverages as 1st option in kids’ meals

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The Wilmington City Council wants healthier fast food kids’ meals. 

The council approved an ordinance that requires restaurants in the city to offer healthy beverages as the default drink included in kids’ meals sold at a single price.

“A major priority included in the council’s strategic plan is to foster a healthy Wilmington,” said Councilman Vash Turner, 5th District, sponsor of the legislation. “What better place to focus that effort than on our children.”

Wilmington is the second city on the East Coast (Baltimore was first) to enact the ordinance that aims to discourage use of sugary drinks that contribute to childhood obesity.

“Reducing sugary drink consumption has enormous potential with respect to reversing the alarming trends of the past decades in type 2 diabetes, pediatric tooth decay, and the heart disease and risk.” said  Robin Horn of the American Heart Association. “By swapping sugary drinks, which are too high in sugar for kids and are harmful to their health, with healthier options such as water, milk and 100 percent  fruit juice we can help change the social norm,” said  Horn.

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The cities of Davis, Stockton, Berkeley, Long Beach, and Santa Clara County in California, and Baltimore  have all adopted ordinances providing for healthy default beverages in restaurant children’s meals.

Turner said the measure is not designed to be punitive and does not prohibit a restaurant’s ability to sell, or a customer’s ability to purchase a substitute or alternative beverage if requested by the customer.

Neighboring Philadelphia has gone a different route by enacting a beverage tax that a variety of critics hope to overturn. 

 

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