Sugar laden cereals misleading parents and children

The British Dental Association is suggesting that food companies should refrain from using words like yummy, magical and quality on their packaging as it is misleading parents and children, especially when it comes to cereal, which alone represents 8% of a child’s sugar consumption.
Maria Morgan, senior lecturer in dental public health at Cardiff University, is the co-author of a study that analysed the images on 13 of the top selling cereal boxes. They found that those images represented a portion three times larger than the portion size recommended on the box. To draw that to a logical conclusion, if children were to follow the visual rather than the written recommendation, they would be consuming approximately 12.5% more sugar than their daily recommended allowance just in one sitting.
Ms Morgan said: “The big thing for me is the normalisation of bigger portion sizes in Britain, which is affecting childhood obesity, adult obesity and oral health. I don’t like parents being hoodwinked by the imagery. I would welcome reformulation of these products. We need to work with the industry on this. I am also worried about food labelling post-Brexit because currently food labelling conforms to EU regulations and going forward we want it as good as, if not better, than what we have now.”
Russ Ladwa, BDA’s Health and Science Committee chair, said: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but sadly marketeers are misleading the public on what constitutes healthy options and acceptable portion sizes. It’s a toxic mix, with claims on “nutritional benefits” designed to blind consumers to sugar content, images of super-sized portions to encourage overconsumption, and emotive language to fuel pester power. The result is a recipe for tooth decay and obesity. These billboards on our breakfast tables still fall entirely outside advertising regulations for marketing sugary foods to kids. Until Government tightens up marketing rules, and sets concrete targets on reformulation, the UK will miss sugar reduction targets by a country mile.”