In the United States, a society based on freedom to choose, food producers and marketers daily influence the public choice for nutritionally questionable “super sized” meals (Nestle, 2002). In the general population, these higher calorie, vitamin-deficient foods have created a national public health epidemic, obesity, that has affected over 27% of the United State's adult population (National Center, n.d.). Researchers have found that obesity is even more prevalent in people with mental retardation (Burkhart, Fox, & Rotatori, 1985; Rimmer, Braddock, & Fujiura, 1993), especially those people with milder impairments (Kelly, Rimmer, & Ness, 1986; Rimmer et al., 1993) who typically reside in what have been deemed less restrictive environments.
Evaluations of dinner menus and daily food intake for people in both restrictive (e.g., Intermediate Care Facilities—ICFs) and least restrictive environments (e.g., community group homes) have indicated that neither setting's dinner menus have...