Restaurant play areas kid-unfriendly

The play area at your local fast-food restaurant might hold hazards and germs that can harm the children inside.

That’s the opinion of Erin Carr-Jordan, who is a professor of human development at Arizona State University. Carr-Jordan took an interest in the issue after she complained to no effect about the play area at a Tempe, Ariz., restaurant in spring 2011.

She swabbed the facility and sent samples to an independent lab, which found 13 pathogens that could harm children. As of last October, Carr-Jordan had visited 50 restaurants’ play areas throughout 13 states. She says she found pathogens that can cause diarrhea, skin infections and meningitis, as well as hazardous broken equipment, clumps of dirt and matted hair.

Carr-Jordan also says many restaurants have no cleaning policy, and no local, state or federal health departments enforce a cleaning protocol. “Not a single state has anything on the books for indoor-playground upkeep,” she says and adds that officials at Arizona Department of Health Services told her that the play areas weren’t within its jurisdiction, because they are “convenience areas.”

Dr. Stuart Levy, who is a microbiologist at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, says children who have any immune-system disorder should be kept away from such areas, and restaurants should clean play areas twice a day.

Parents should inspect play areas before their children play, Carr-Jordan says, and they must make sure that their kids’ hands are sanitized before the children eat.