Not good news for cereal lovers, young or old. New figures from sinks-taps.com found that more than half of kids’ cereals provide at least 50% of a child’s daily sugar allowance in one 30g bowl. With larger portion sizes or certain cereals, it is easy for the figure to be much higher than this. Frosties came out with the highest percentage – over 71% of a child’s RDA per bowl. Some brands have dropped their sugar content, but despite this, Coco Pops still contain 46% of a child’s RDA of sugar.
The British Dental Association is calling for significant changes to the marketing and product formulation of cereals. Russ Ladwa, chair of the BDA’s Health and Science Committee 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 disaster. Until government tightens up marketing rules, and sets concrete targets on reformulation, the UK will miss sugar reduction targets by a country mile”.
