San Marcos — A new program for San Marcos restaurants encourages kids to make healthier decisions when dining out.

Nicole Baker, a registered dietician, is the project coordinator for the Best Food for Families, Infants and Toddlers (FITS) program carried out by Texas State University’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The program is a grant-funded research project funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services that was implemented earlier this year.

“We are trying to improve children’s health by reducing their risk for obesity,” Baker said.

“Our two main objectives are to make it easier for families, infants and toddlers to eat more fruits and vegetables and to drink fewer or no sugar-sweetened beverages.”

The program is currently working with 15 San Marcos restaurants that have chosen to change either their current children’s menu or add a new children’s menu.

“We want to change the default on kids’ menus to be the healthier options” instead of the typical choices such as french fries and potato chips.

Alternative beverage choices include water, milk, unsweet tea and 100 percent fruit juice instead of sweet tea or sodas, which Baker said is a concern for many restaurant owners.

“One of the biggest issues for them s the profit from sugar-sweetened beverages. Many owners said ‘Oh, but our customers expect these items to be on our menus’,” she said.

Baker said they are focusing on fruits and vegetables and sugar-sweetened beverages early in a child’s life.

“When they start drinking these beverages, they crave them more and more, and as a child develops they need to be exposed to healthier options,” she said.

Some owners also worry about the cost of adding new items to their current menus that might result in waste if the healthier options are not popular.

But so far, Baker said, the program has been successful.

“I think having 15 restaurants agree to work with us has been a huge success. And they are all at different stages” of adopting new menus or modifying their current menus, she said.

This success

“A big motivation for the restaurants that I’ve seen has been competition with other restaurants, she said. “When they hear that this restaurant and that restaurant has joined, they want to be a part of it too.”

Baker said the restaurants that partner in the program also receive free publicity on their website and when program has a booth at local festivals.

Restaurants that participate in the Best Food FITS program also receive a decal to put on their front door that indicates their involvement.

Baker said Grin’s on North LBJ was the first restaurant in San Marcos to join the program earlier this year.

Paul Sutphen, owner of Grin’s Restaurant, said he had his restaurant join the program this summer as a way to help encourage people to change their eating habits.

Sutphen said he sells a lot of healthy dishes to adults but noticed that the options for children were lacking.

“When I looked at the children’s menu, they could get french fries and that was it,” he said, adding that the new children’s menu offers vegetable and salad options as well as alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages.

It may be too early in the project to determine if the changes have been successful, but Sutphen said he believes that when customers are presented with alternative choices they will make healthier choices.

“I think it’s been successful because we give parents an option, and that’s what everyone wants is the option,” he said.

Sutphen said his own experience as a parent seeking healthier food choices influenced his decision to change the menu at Grin’s.

“It’s a feel good thing, and I feel good about it,” he said.

The San Marcos restaurants participating in the Best Food FITS program to date are Grin’s, Palmers Restaurant, Bar & Courtyard, Cool Mint Cafe, El Rey de Pollo, Herbert’s Taco Hut, Mana’s Restaurant, Rogelio’s, Taqueria Del Charro Tapatio, Los Vega Mexican Restaurant, Asian Garden, China Palace Buffet, Gil’s Broiler, EuroCafe and The Coffee Pot Bistro.

Of these restaurants, the children’s menus at Grin’s and EuroCafe are currently available while the others are in the process of creating new menus and expect to have them completed soon, Baker said.

She said her goal was to have 50 restaurants involved by the end of January 2011.

The program staff are also planning to offer cooking classes in January at the new Chapultepec Homes community center geared toward feeding infants, toddlers and children.

Texas State’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences recently donated four complete kitchen sets to the Chapultepec Homes community center.

Texas State Nutrition and Foods Professors BJ Friedman and Sylvia Crixell, both registered dieticians, are the principal investigators for the program.