By Christian Torres and Kaiser Health News

Fried food, a cookie, ice cream and soda.

It's a dieter's nightmare. It's also what many children's hospitals in California are offering their patients, staff and visitors.

Researchers with the UCLA School of Medicine and RAND Corporation visited the state's 14 major children's hospitals last year and found many less-than-ideal food options. According to their study published Thursday in Academic Pediatrics, only 7 percent of hospital entrees were deemed healthy.

"That's a low number made worse by the fact that they weren't labeled healthy options, and there was no calorie information available," said Lenard Lesser, a physician at UCLA Family Health Center and the study's lead author. "With so many people eating there, children's hospitals should be exemplars for healthy eating."

Lesser himself visited children's hospitals for the study and saw many food venues with sugar-sweetened beverages, fried chicken, burgers, fries and, conveniently located by the cash register, large refrigerators full of ice cream.

The study looked at 16 total food venues - cafeterias and snack bars catering to the hospitals' outpatients and staff. It did not evaluate food offered to inpatients.

Of the food sellers surveyed, 12 didn't offer whole-wheat bread, seven didn't offer low-fat or fat-free salad dressing, and 13 offered ice cream, cookies, or other unhealthy "impulse" items at checkout. In addition, 11 venues were missing nutrition information at the point of purchase.

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