Paediatricians Slam Baby Food Sugar and Salt Content
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- Published: Friday, 06 January 2023 18:26
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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It’s well-recognised that habits formed early in life can soon become embedded, and sales and marketing departments are all too aware of the ‘catch ‘em young’ principle.
Historically this applied to cigarette smoking where, back in the day, tobacco manufacturers strived to recruit teenagers to smoke secure in the knowledge that once hooked, they’d become lucrative consumers for life.
Now, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (‘RCPCH) is sounding the alarm bell about the amount of sugar and salt in baby food and its capacity to hook toddlers and children to the taste.
There has been prominent media coverage for several years about sugar taxes and manufacturers and vendors (supermarkets) have trumpeted their initiatives to reduce sugar contents. But baby and toddler foods were not included in the Government’s 2016 challenge to the food industry to cut sugar content of certain food categories by 20%.
According to the RCPCH, ‘the Government released draft commercial baby food and drink guidelines for consultation in 2020. Unfortunately, these guidelines have not been seen since, and there are now no limits or restrictions on how much sugar and salt can be in these products, alongside reports of high levels of obesity and tooth decay in children starting school’.
Disturbing research by the British Dental Association has revealed many baby food pouches targeted at babies under 12 months of age contain ‘more sugar by volume than Coca-Cola’.
Some infant food products that went under the BDA’s microscope ‘contained up to two thirds of an adult’s recommended daily allowance of sugar’.
The RCPCH says the figures are deeply disturbing since one in three children leaves primary school overweight or obese, a statistic that increases in areas of higher deprivation. The consequence of this in terms of life expectancy and quality of health are well documented and account in large part for the explosion in type II diabetes cases.
RCPCH President Dr Camilla Kingdon says “It’s a national disgrace that there is currently zero guidance on the salt and sugar levels in products aimed at infants ….all paediatricians know that good nutrition is the foundation of good health and wellbeing”.
Kingdon’s sentiments were grasped upon by the BDA’s Chair, Eddie Crouch, who added “The Government can’t keep kicking this down the road. Tooth decay is the number one reason for hospital admissions among young people. Yet ministers are letting parents be duped into buying foods that can hook their kids to sugar from infancy”.
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