An investigation found that salt levels in lunches at JD Wetherspoon and Nando’s exceeded 4g of salt — the amount children are supposed to eat a day.
Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) highlighted 11 chains in total after testing over 160 meals.
Nando’s and Wetherspoons both served children’s meals containing three times more salt than a McDonald’s hamburger and fries Happy Meal.
A Wetherspoons’ Wiltshire cured ham and cheese sandwich with chips had 4.8g of salt, though the survey found significant differences in salt content of the same meals at restaurants.
Some desserts were found to contain as much salt as a packet of crisps with side dishes sometimes containing more than twice as much as main meals.
Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: “We take on board the findings of the report.
“We aim to provide a range of children’s meals and these feature varying salt levels. We are reviewing how we can reduce the salt levels on the two meals indicated.
“We provide all of the salt level figures in a leaflet available in all pubs and on our website, along with full nutritional information.
“It is encouraging that our best-selling children’s dish, spaghetti bolognese, was found to have the lowest levels of salt (0.1g salt) of any children’s meal in the report.”