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Statement

Moms Applaud Dairy Queen’s Decision to Pull Soda from Kid’s Menus

May 14, 2015
Youth & Family Justice

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Dairy Queen joins Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonalds, Subway, Chipotle, Arby’s and Panera in Providing Healthier Default Options on their Kid’s Menus
Dairy Queen announced that it will be removing all soda pop products from their kid’s menus, by September 1, 2015. MomsRising.org members, joined by advocates at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, had been urging the chain to improve the nutritional quality of its kids' meals by removing soda from the kid’s menu. The voices of moms and parents were heard!
 

Photo: MomsRising.org Good Food Force national meeting on soda in kids meals.

 
With Dairy Queen agreeing to remove fountain drinks such as soda from its children’s menu, they now join Burger King, Wendy’s, and McDonald's as well as Subway, Chipotle, Arby's, and Panera in providing healthier beverage options in their kid’s meals.
 
Monifa Bandele, senior campaign director of MomsRising.org’s Food Justice campaign, issued the following statement on Dairy Queen’s announcement:
 
"Parents and families across the country are applauding as one by one, restaurants are listening to parents and public health expertsand starting to do their part to help keep America’s kids healthy, but we aren’t done yet! While Dairy Queen is now offering better default beverages, we need more restaurants to do the same because sugar-sweetened beverages uniquely promote heart disease and type 2 diabetes. 
 
"Ensuring that our children can make healthy choices is an important part of raising them. When restaurants offer up sugary drinks as a default choice, it undermines those efforts. 
 
“Hundreds of thousands of MomsRising.org members and volunteers have spoken up asking fast food industry leaders to take this step. While Dairy Queen’s action to remove soda is a great first step - we urge all fast-food restaurants to further improve upon their healthy options for children and adults by serving whole grain rolls, offering more fruit and vegetable options, reducing sodium across the menu, and adopting a comprehensive policy to limit the marketing of unhealthy food to children. 
 
Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest added: 
 
“Dairy Queen deserves credit for being responsive to the concerns of parents, who increasingly want to be able to order off the kids’ menu without having to say ‘no’ to soda. That DQ’s Franchise Advisory Council voted unanimously to adopt this policy shows the depth of the company’s commitment.”
 
Read the letter from Dairy Queen announcing the change in policy.
 

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.