Are 'healthy' options for children's school lunches high in sugar, salt and fat?
CONVENIENCE FOOD products aimed at children and marketed as healthy and nutritious choices were examined as part of this research. A selection of well-known products which are widely available in Irish supermarkets, marketed as being healthy options and suitable choices for children's lunchboxes were selected and their sugar, salt and fat contents benchmarked against the guidelines laid down by the British government in 1996 (known as the MAFF guidelines).
Furthermore, products that are well known to be unhealthy such as fizzy drinks, while included in the initial questionnaire, were excluded from this examination which focused only on products marketed as healthy or nutritious choices.
The above table outlines the MAFF (1996) guidelines.
One study states that there are two primary customers when it comes to selecting food for children: the child and the person buying the food (usually the child's mother).
The convenience foods selected for this research, see table below, were chosen as they were specifically marketed to mothers and children as "healthy" products for children's school lunches. This research suggests that the marketing techniques used to sell these products rely heavily on health and nutrition claims, eg "rich in calcium" - Amigo Juice drink; "with added vitamin D to help calcium absorption" - Kraft Dairylea Lunchables Ham 'n' Cheese Crackers. References to well-known nutritious foods are also used: "cereal and milk" - Kellogg's Coco Pops Cereal and Milk bar; as are references to children: "great for growing kids" - Nestle Munch Bunch yoghurt; references to lunchboxes: "ideal for lunchboxes" - Capri-Sun; and disclaimers which lead mothers to believe that certain products are better for their children than others: Amigo fruit juice - "all natural ingredients. No artificial, colours, flavours or preservatives."
Other marketing techniques are aimed at children, including novelty packaging, eg Cheestrings or Capri-Sun pouches; the presence of cartoon characters, eg Tom and Jerry Turkey and Pork Sausage meat (made by Billy); and games and puzzles, eg the inclusion of a maze puzzle for children on Petit Filous Frubes.
All the products chosen were marketed as healthy and carried health or nutrition claims either explicitly - eg Coco Pops Cereal and Milk Bar "with vitamins, calcium and iron" or implicitly Kraft Dairylea Rippers (cheese).
Of the "healthy" products examined, every product exceeded the MAFF (1996) guidelines for being high in either sugar, sodium or saturated fat content.
All fruit juice, cereal bar and yoghurt products were high in sugar (above 10g per 100g/ml). Coco Pops Cereal and Milk bars contained 41g of sugar per 100g. All the cheese and meat products were high in sodium (above 0.5g per 100g) with Calvita Kids Peelers and Galtee Corned Beef containing 1g per 100g. Of the cheese products and cereal bars, eight out of nine products were high in saturated fat (above 5g per 100g). Cheestrings had 14.8g and Laughing Cow Cheez Dippers had 11g of saturated fat per 100g.
Nine out of the 24 products selected were high in both sugar and saturated fat or sodium and saturated fat. All of the cheese products selected and one of the processed meat products (Galtee - Lunchbox Corned Beef) selected were high in sodium and saturated fat.
Both Kellogg's Rice Krispie Squares and Kellogg's Coco Pops Cereal and Milk bars were high in both sugar and saturated fat.In contrast, Nutri-Grain soft bake bars had 3.5g of saturated fat.
Thus, of all the 24 products chosen and marketed as "healthy" choices for children's school lunches, every product was high in either sugar, sodium or saturated fat with nine products being high in two of these components.
• Extract from Anne Marie Kavanagh's thesis for her Masters in Nutrition in education at St Patrick's College in Dublin