Snack Traps
What's your lunch box snack?
Parents call on food industry to raise the bar on food labelling
Australian parents and leading nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton have teamed up again to reveal the truth behind the marketing spin on popular children’s foods, today releasing the results of an investigation into children’s snack bars. Continuing their Food Detectives campaign, Dr Stanton, together with the members of the children's health advocacy group The Parents Jury, compared the onpack marketing claims of over 20 children’s snack bars with their actual nutritional content.
Kellogg’s LCMs were named as an ‘Offender’ for being promoted as a ‘sure fire lunch box hit’ with a series of television advertisements portraying children shunning their wholesome lunch box items in favour of the sugary snack. With more fat, sugar and salt than a snack size Milky Way bar, Dr Stanton warns that even though LCMs are sold in the muesli bar aisle of the supermarket, they in fact have more similarities with confectionery.
“This product should not be recommended as a regular lunch box food. It has very little dietary fibre and contains a harmful level of saturated fat,” Dr Stanton said. Found in the health food aisle, glutenfree Nature’s Way’s chocolate Kids Smart Bars were also condemned for claiming to be good for ‘healthy kids’. The packaging boasts that the bars are free from gluten, artificial colours and flavours, yet each bar contains more fat and as much sugar as a regular sweet biscuit.
“The fact that the ingredient list contains over 20 items tells you that there are too many added ingredients to make up for a fundamental lack of nutrition in these bars. Kids who need a glutenfree product deserve better,” said Dr Stanton.
Rounding off the ‘worst offenders’ list are Nestle’s MILO bars, which are portrayed as an energy source for active kids and teens, and are approved for direct sale to children in school canteens across the country. However Dr Stanton warns that even though they have moderate fibre content, any goodness found in MILO bars comes at a cost.
“MILO drink is sugary enough to start with, so these snack bars with even more added sugar are just another dental hazard. There are more nutritious ways for kids to get their energy,” Dr Stanton said.
Mother of six and member of The Parents Jury, Shannon Anastasio, says even the most conscientious of parents can get fed up with having to wade through an abundance of misleading information when shopping for their family. “Busy shoppers don’t have time to read the fine print or interpret nutrient percentages on every packet in their trolley. We’re fed up with the food companies spinning the truth about their
products to make profit at the expense of our kids’ health,” said Shannon.
The Parents Jury will contact the food companies featured in the Food Detectives campaign to urge them to implement honest and informative labelling on children’s foods. They will also continue to lobby the federal government to mandate a frontofpack traffic light food labelling system that colour codes levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and sodium on packaged foods, enabling consumers to make informed choices at a glance.
More information:
Parents Jury - http://www.parentsjury.org.au
Parents warned over lunch treats - Herald Sun article 27/7/09
