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WHO: Many baby foods incorrectly marketed, high in sugar
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Many baby foods are incorrectly marketed toward infants aged younger than 6 months, and many of these foods are too high in sugar as well, according to two new studies from WHO.
“There has been growing concern that inappropriate promotion of some commercially produced foods for babies and toddlers can undermine breastfeeding and optimal infant and young child nutrition by weakening parents’ and carers’ confidence in home-produced foods, promoting dietary habits that may encourage later obesity or [noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)] and/or undermining breastfeeding,” WHO researchers wrote in the study.
WHO has long advocated for breastfeeding exclusively for the first 6 months of an infant’s life. In guidelines released in 2016, it explicitly stated that “commercial complementary foods should not be advertised for infants under 6 months of age.”
“Good nutrition in infancy and early childhood remains key to ensuring optimal child growth and development, and to better health outcomes later in life — including the prevention of overweight, obesity and diet-related NCDs — thereby making United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages much more achievable,” Zsuzsanna Jakab, PhD, WHO regional director for Europe, said in a press release.
This year, WHO released a draft nutrient profile model for children aged 6 months to 36 months to help member states decide which foods are inappropriate for promotion for this age group. The draft was validated against label information from 1,328 products on the market in three countries between 2016 and 2017, and it was pilot tested in seven other countries in 2018 with a further 1,314 products, according to the release.
WHO Europe has developed a methodology for identifying commercial baby foods available in retail settings and their nutritional data. Researchers used this methodology to collect data on 7,955 food or drink products marketed for infants and young children from 516 stores in four cities — Vienna, Austria; Sofia, Bulgaria; Budapest, Hungary; and Haifa, Israel — between November 2017 and January 2018. Within the four cities, between 28% and 60% of products were marketed as suitable for infants aged younger than 6 months, which is a “substantial proportion,” according to WHO. Although legal under European Union law, this ignores WHO’s International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and the WHO guidance.
“Foods for infants and young children are expected to comply with various established nutrition and compositional recommendations,” João Breda, PhD, MBA, MPH, head of the WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases in Moscow, said in the release. “Nonetheless, there are concerns that many products may still be too high in sugars.” – by Joe Gramigna
References:
WHO. Commercial foods for infants and young children in the WHO European Region (2019). http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/publications/2019/commercial-foods-for-infants-and-young-children-in-the-who-european-region-2019. Accessed July 17, 2019.
WHO. Ending inappropriate promotion of commercially available complementary foods for infants and young children between 6 and 36 months in Europe (2019). http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/publications/2019/ending-inappropriate-promotion-of-commercially-available-complementary-foods-for-infants-and-young-children-between-6-and-36-months-in-europe-2019. Accessed July 17, 2019.
WHO. WHO/Europe studies find baby foods are high in sugar and inappropriately marketed for babies. http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-releases/2019/whoeurope-studies-find-baby-foods-are-high-in-sugar-and-inappropriately-marketed-for-babies. Accessed July 17, 2019.
Disclosures: Infectious Diseases in Children could not confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.