- Researchers say packaged foods marketed to children contain higher levels of sugar and are lower in essential nutrients than other products.
- They said cereal and toaster pastries had the most child-appealing marketing among the products they studied.
- Experts say more education for parents as well as government regulation on product marketing to children are needed.
Foods marketed at kids with the most child-appealing packaging are often higher in sugar and lower in vital nutrients than those with less appealing packaging.
That’s according to a Canadian study published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers looked at nearly 6,000 individual food products relevant to children’s diets and reported that around 13% of them contained child-appealing marketing, with the power of that marketing varying from product to product.
In general, however, though there was a weak correlation between marketing power and general nutrient levels, the researchers said the foods that were evaluated to be the most appealing to children were higher in sugar — with an average of 14.7 grams versus 9 grams — compared to standard packaging.
“While this study found variability in nutritional quality and composition depending on the food category and the nutrient, results showed that in many cases, products with child-appealing packaging were higher in nutrients of concern – in particular, total sugars, free sugars, and sodium — than products with non-child-appealing packaging,” the researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa wrote in a press release.
Of all the foods studied, only two categories had more than 50% child-appealing marketing: cereal and toaster pastries. These were among the products most aggressively marketed to kids.
The study looked specifically at the Canadian food market, but experts say it’s likely the same processes and conclusions apply to the United States.
“It is impossible to know without collecting the data, but in my…
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