A study of baby and toddler foods on supermarket shelves across Australia has revealed a staggering number of unregulated claims that misled parents into thinking they were healthy.
The findings, published in Maternal and Child Nutrition, showed that none of the products for children aged 6-36 months met international guidelines for promotion and more than three quarters failed on overall nutritional requirements, mainly due to excess energy and sugar.
Lead author Dr Elizabeth Dunford, Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health, said that consuming excess calories in early years set children up for obesity in later life and that the early introduction of highly sweetened foods drove lifelong taste preferences.
“Time-poor parents are looking for convenience, but most would be shocked by the deceptive marketing tactics suggesting products are healthier than they are,” she explained.
“They would probably also be surprised to know that regulatory safeguards to protect children from exposure to unhealthy food marketing are currently very limited.”
Information on 309 infant and toddler food products held in The George Institute’s FoodSwitch database was assessed against the WHO Regional Office for Europe’s Nutrient and Promotion Profile Model, which were published in 2022 and are considered a gold-standard benchmark.
The team found that only 22% met all WHO criteria for nutrient composition and none met the ‘no prohibited claims’ requirement, including statements like, ‘free from colours and flavours’, ‘organic’ and ‘no added sugar’.
“We found the average number of prohibited claims in this category was 5.6 – in one case, we saw 21 different prohibited claims on a single product,” Dr Dunford said.
“Pouches, which account for half of commercial infant food sales and are growing exponentially, had the greatest number of prohibited claims at an average of 5.8 per package.”
The Australian Infant Feeding Guidelines state that ‘consumption of nutrient-poor foods with high levels of fat/ saturated fat, sugar, and/or salt should be avoided or limited’ and that no sugars should be added to food for children under 12 months of age.
Given that an estimated one in four children are overweight or obese, Dietitian Dr Daisy Coyle, a Research Fellow at The George Institute and Conjoint Lecturer at UNSW Sydney, said that the use of misleading claims and the ‘health halo’ effect was extremely concerning.
“We know these claims and messages influence what parents buy for infants and toddlers in the critical early years. The food industry is essentially setting the foundations for unhealthy eating later in life and this situation urgently requires regulation,” she said.
“We want to see a more comprehensive approach to addressing key drivers of chronic disease from infancy. The long-term health of future generations depends on it.”