We know that homemade baby food has more and better benefits than the food we can buy already prepared, and that as we have analyzed on other occasions, most contain too much sugar: almost double the recommended amount for the whole day.
Now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has published a statement in which warns not only of excess sugar in baby food, but also of misleading labeling that makes them seem suitable for them, and that results in inappropriate marketing.
Through a statement published this day on its website, WHO shared the results of two new studies on baby food, conducted in its European region. In them, it was found that a large proportion of baby food is marketed incorrectly as appropriate for children under 6 months and that many of them contain inappropriately high levels of sugar.
In Babies and more Sugar containing baby cereal porridge: we analyze the main brandsWHO, in its division for the area of Europe, developed a methodology to identify commercial baby food available, and to collect the nutritional content on the labels, as well as other information on the packaging, labeling and promotion.
This methodology was what It was used to collect information on 7,955 foods or beverages for infants and young children, found in 516 establishments in 4 cities of the WHO European Region: Vienna (Austria), Sofia (Bulgaria), Budapest (Hungary) and Haifa (Israel), between November 2017 and January 2018. In all cities, a large proportion of products, between 28% and 60% of them, it was marketed as appropriate for babies under six months.
Although this labeling is permitted by European Union law, it does not follow the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes or the Guide to end the inappropriate promotion of food for infants and young children, both of WHO, which establish that commercial complementary meals should not be labeled as appropriate for children under six months.
In three of the cities, half or more of the products contained more than 30% of calories from sugars, and about a third of the products listed sugar, fruit juice concentrate and other sweeteners as one of the ingredients.
In Babies and moreChildren's food: we analyze 17 brands of breakfast cereals that children consume mostThese are all added flavors and sugars that can affect the development of children's food preferences, causing you to increase your taste for sweeter foods and get used to consuming an excessive amount of sugar, as we saw in a study conducted in Spain, which found that children between 9 and 12 years consume more than 32 kilos of sugar a year.
While foods such as fruits and vegetables that contain sugars naturally are appropriate for babies and toddlers, the high level of free sugars in commercial products such as baby porridge is cause for concern.
"Good nutrition in childhood remains key to achieving optimal growth and development of the child, and to improve the health outcomes that you will have later in life, including the prevention of overweight, obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) diet related"says Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, Regional Director of WHO in Europe.
With this and the new guidelines it is preparing, WHO wants to end the promotion of breast milk substitutes and that added sugars and sweeteners be eliminated from baby food, as well as use a label that warns when a product is not suitable for children under three, like sugary drinks.
Recall that the WHO recommends breastfeeding exclusively until six months of age, and subsequently, a nutrient-rich diet, with meals prepared at home based on fresh foods and without adding sugar of any kind in its preparation.
