A new study from The George Institute for Global Health says that parents of babies and toddlers may want to pay more attention as they walk through grocery stores.
The study, which came out on August 21 in Nutrients, an international, peer-reviewed magazine on nutrition, shows that most baby and toddler foods sold in US grocery shops don’t follow the nutritional guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The study looked at 651 different food items from ten major US supermarkets, such as Walmart, Target, Kroger, Costco, and Aldi.
It found that 60% of them did not meet the nutritional standards set by the WHO’s nutrient and promotion profile model (NPPM), and none of them met the NPPM’s requirements for promotions.
This means that some items may have false marketing claims on them that make them seem healthier than they really are.
The NPPM lists both the nutrition needs and development rules for kids ages 6 to 26 months. Its goal is to help European countries make policy changes that will help them improve their nutritional standards.
The WHO NPPM recommendations focus on lowering the amount of sugar in foods and making them taste less sweet.
They also include measures “to ensure appropriate energy density, salt, protein, and fat contents across product categories.” Here are the exact NPPM standards.
They say that there can’t be any added free sugars or sweeteners and that the sodium level can’t be more than 50 mg/100 kcal. At the moment, there are no rules in the US about how to advertise or make sure that market foods for babies and children are healthy.
The George Institute says that different food products didn’t all meet the WHO NPPM nutritional requirements.
However, the most common problems were high sugar content and a lack of protein, with “over 70% of products failing to meet protein requirements and 44% exceeding total sugar recommendations.”
It was easy to blame pre-packaged snacks and fast food for not feeding babies healthy food. People wondered how parents can feed their babies well without spending a lot of time. Here are some more things to know about feeding babies and infants when you’re at the store.
Why Is It Important For Babies To Eat Good Food?
What babies eat when they are babies can affect their health and food preferences as they grow up. Research shows that the first 1000 days of a child’s life are important for their brain development.
During this time, their “developing brain and body suffer irreparable damage from inadequate nutrition.” Registered dietitian and infant nutrition expert Lauren Manaker, who lives in Charleston, told us more about how important this time is for us.
She said that eating unhealthy as a kid can increase your chances of getting diseases like diabetes and heart problems when you’re older. Eating healthy from a young age can help you keep those habits for life. That’s why it’s important for grown-ups to choose nutritious foods for kids.
What Should Young People See?
In response to the study’s results, Manaker said that parents shouldn’t get too scared. A snack that doesn’t meet nutritional standards doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad for a child.
Instead, Manaker said, “What’s more important is to look at the baby’s overall diet and make sure they’re getting all the nutrients they need from a variety of foods.” Because of the issues raised in this study, it is very important for parents not to depend on what is written on food packages to help them make decisions about what to eat.
Parents should learn how to read food labels so they can tell which goods, among other things, have too much sodium and extra sugars and not enough protein.
Manaker said that one easy tip is to look at the order of the items on a box. Commercial foods must name ingredients in decreasing order of amount. For example, if a parent wants to find a food pouch with spinach for their child, they would want spinach to be the first ingredient, not the third or fourth.
As A Parent, What Should You Look Out For?
According to the study, snacks and easy-to-grab foods like fruit cups, puffed snacks, and cereal bars are most likely to not be very healthy or nutritious.
The WHO said that these foods were not likely to follow their rules because they “contained low levels of protein and high levels of energy [calories], sodium, and sugar and frequently contained added free sugars and sweeteners.” Sadly, these food varieties are frequently publicized wrongly.
The claims on the package, for instance, may lead parents to believe that the foods are healthy when in fact they are not. It’s feasible for words like “sans gluten,” “natural,” or “non-GMO” to be valid, yet they can likewise conceal the way that a bite has a great deal of added sugar or other nourishing issues.
For this reason Manaker says it’s essential to figure out how to peruse sustenance marks appropriately.
Of course, commercial snacks and prepared foods are popular for a reason: they’re easy for busy parents to use to feed their kids. “If a caregiver has the time, pre-cutting, washing, and slicing snack foods and keeping them in pre-portioned bags in the fridge or pantry can help make it easier to include snacks that are not pre-packaged in a child’s diet,” says Manaker. The caregiver should also read the labels of snacks more carefully.
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