Parents the target of low-nutrition toddler food ads

The Australian

3 days ago

Parents may need to 'avoid the toddler food section' of a supermarket if they want to provide their youngsters with nutritious meals, as new research shows popular food pouches are routinely marketed to families despite them often falling well short of infant feeding guidelines.
Those are takeaway messages following the release of a new study examining the marketing of commercial foods for toddlers and infants by major supermarkets. Researchers say the findings prove regulation is desperately needed in Australia to help parents make the best food choices for their children.
Toddler food in Australia is not subject to comprehensive regulation, but that's now under consideration.
'I think it is shocking that the regulation doesn't protect children's diets especially when we've seen the growth of this food market in the last few years,' said Alexandra Chung, an accredited practising dietitian in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food at Monash University.
She also led the study, which reviewed 60 digital catalogues from Australia's four main supermarket chains over a 12-week period starting in August 2023. A total of 121 commercial products were identified across 49 pages, with Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA/IGA Super reviewed.
'Consumers pay attention to what's in supermarket catalogues, so we were curious to see how baby and toddler foods are promoted in that format,' Dr Chung said.
'We found that most of the messaging around commercial foods for babies and young children really promotes processed and packaged foods, and we found that some of the techniques used to promote these foods focused on price as a technique to promote the attractiveness of these foods.'
The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Promotion International, show discretionary foods were most likely to be promoted for toddlers and infants. Half of all products were packaged in pouches.
According to the study, commercial food pouches in Australia are high in sugar, lack necessary iron, and can impede the development of oral motor skills and eating behaviours if consumed directly from the spout.
Fruit purees made up 40 per cent of the foods advertised for toddlers, followed by snacks at 27 per cent and confectionery at 12 per cent.
'It is therefore concerning that current findings demonstrated that fruit puree pouch products along with snacks are the most promoted (commercial infant and toddler foods) in Australian supermarket catalogues,' the study noted.
'This is a concern to us, because it really doesn't align with infant feeding guidelines or Australian Guide to Healthy Eating,' Dr Chung said.
The call for change is being led by the Food for Health Alliance which advocates for improved foods for babies and toddlers to support good health and wellbeing.
The alliance has previously examined the make-up of commercial toddler and infant food, finding that 72 per cent of products in Australia failed to meet international nutritional standards for sugar, sweetness, salt, energy density, protein and fat.
In some instances, products were presented in a way that made it look like the base ingredient was a vegetable such as broccoli, when in reality the main ingredient was apple.
It's part of the reason why researchers are so worried about the marketing of such products.
'The content of pouch-based products is predominantly sweet in flavour,' Dr Chung said.
'This is mostly through using fruit-based sources and your sweeter vegetables … you'll see there's a lot of pumpkin and carrots. This is the time when young children develop their taste preferences. This is when they have their first exposure to food, and really when they learn how to eat and what to eat.'
Squeeze pouch foods have experienced rapid growth globally in recent years, with research showing they particularly appeal to parents who are anxious or uncertain around food preparation or safety.
According to Australia's Infant Feeding Guidelines, from around six months, infants are physiologically and developmentally ready for new foods, textures and modes of feeding, and need more nutrients than can be provided by breastmilk or formula alone.
'If they're relying on pouch-based foods, and they're not getting exposure to different textures, they're not sort of learning to chew more lumpy foods, and then eventually much more complex foods,' Dr Chung said.
'The marketing itself might not change the behaviour, but if the misleading marketing is really encouraging parents to buy these foods, often under the guise that they're healthy, then that may lead to more frequent consumption of these foods by children. That then means children are missing out on important nutrients and developing stronger preferences for sweeter foods that are not nutritionally complete.'
The study is an extension of earlier work looking at how foods are promoted through on-packet marketing which showed the widespread use of what were deemed 'misleading' practices. Examples include low-nutritional foods adorned with pictures of healthy foods on the packaging or carrying statements like 'organic', 'good for little tummies', '100 per cent natural', 'no added sugar', or 'supports healthy growth', all of which can carry positive health associations.
At the study's core, Dr Chung worries parents are unfairly expected to differentiate between sleek marketing spin and genuine nutritional information, and she said more regulation was needed to ensure caregivers were adequately informed.
'It's important that we support parents in what they're doing to raise healthy kids. We know most parents are doing the best they can … our concerns are around inadequate regulation and misleading marketing' she said.
Fiona Willer is the president of Dietitians Australia. She was not involved in the study but has reviewed the findings and agrees regulatory change is needed. She would also like to see supermarkets be more active, voluntarily, at promoting core foods on pages featuring toddler and baby products. According to the study, only 7 per cent of the catalogues reviewed promoted core foods for the youngest age group.
'If you just think about the difference between an adult and an infant, there's a lot of growth and development that happens in those early years and that needs good nutrition to progress unimpeded and particularly nutrients for infants,' Dr Willer said.
'I have three kids of my own and I'm familiar with the walk around the supermarket that avoids the toy section. It is possible to avoid the toddler food section in the supermarket as well. Eating well for toddlers is not found in that section of the supermarket. It's found in the sections where eating well for grown ups is found as well.'
She said Australia has a robust system that means foods that are otherwise low-value are fortified with some nutrients. But that does not go far enough.
'Dietitians Australia is calling for particular changes to the regulation and standards relating to infant and toddler marketed foods,' she said.
'This includes things like fortification with iron; controls around what types of sugar and amount of sugars, and the sources of sugars and sweeteners; the amount of sodium or salt within the products; saturated fats; things like energy density.'
Dr Willer said the group also wanted to see changes to advertising rules to restrict the use of popular cartoon characters and other similar imagery to be used on low-nutrient foods, saying their appearance can lead to powerful 'pester power' that adults can find hard to refuse.
'We've been looking at some kind of marketing code that disallows the use of characters that are going to appeal to toddlers, because that's a sales tactic. It's not a nutrition tactic.'
A spokesperson for one of the supermarkets reviewed, Woolworths, said the retailer provides shoppers with choice.
'Woolworths aims to provide convenient, accessible, and diverse options for baby and toddler nutrition,' they said.
'We recognise that many of our customers are families who lead busy lives, and we offer a wide range of products to suit as many different needs as possible including both fresh and grocery items. We also offer free fruit for kids in our all stores.'
This all comes at a time when momentum is building for change. Regulations around things like the composition and nutritional quality of commercial infant and toddler foods do not apply to all products that are promoted as suitable for infants and young children.
The nation's food ministers have agreed the status quo cannot remain and have developed a policy paper on the issue and in March they formally asked Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to consider regulatory changes to the code that could help to improve commercial foods for toddlers.
According to FSANZ, it is 'currently undertaking preparatory scoping work on this matter,' though it is not clear when the work is likely to be completed.
They also referred non-regulatory changes to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
Dr Willer hopes, whatever is decided, the government steps up.
'Usually, marketing codes are kept to voluntary codes, but I would hope that the government at least will go further to have more requirements of regulation for marketing products to food,' she said.
FSANZ is also considering a separate proposal to revise and clarify provisions within the food standards code for formula for children aged between one and three years. As part of the review, FSANZ is reviewing regulatory definitions, composition, labelling and the way the products are represented.
The push for better regulation comes at a time when Australia is seeing a significant rise in preventable disease, which is typically tied to diet and lifestyle choices.
The latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows most Australians are not meeting the recommended daily intake of vegetables.
When broken down into age groups, it suggests 84 per cent of children aged two to three years did not meet the daily recommendation. For adults, that figure was woefully even worse with 94 per cent not meeting the recommended daily serves of veggies.
It also found, on average, Australians of all ages did not eat the recommended servings of grains, meat and alternatives, and dairy products and alternatives each day.
Increasing vegetable consumption among children and adults is a target of the National Preventive Health Strategy and the National Obesity Strategy. The reasons for the push come back to better health and disease prevention. According to the AIHW, in 2018, dietary risk factors were the third leading preventable cause of ill health and premature deaths nationally.