Soft drink makers are conning us with deceptive labels

Fruit flavouring is creating a “health halo” that is duping misguided families into buying fizzy drinks that contain as much sugar as Coke.

Fruit-flavoured soft drinks are duping families into thinking they’re healthier.

Misguided parents admit they’re choosing lemon and orange fizzy drinks even though they contain similar levels of sugar to alternatives like Coke.

Shoppers are also failing to check the nutrition of drinks — sparking a call for their sugar content to be published on the front of bottles and cans.

New research, conducted in Melbourne, shows fruit flavouring is creating a “health halo” over sugar-laden options like Solo and lemonade.

Labels in particular were leading shoppers to think the drinks were healthier than they were.

“I’m almost probably a little bit tricked,’’ one parent told researchers.

Yumi, 2 and Coco, 4, aren’t fooled by the labels. They just like the taste. Picture: Tim Carrafa

“I’ll give (the children) a Solo or something that’s a lemon soft drink, over something with red dye in it, over something that’s Coke. Like there’s ­almost a hierarchy of evil soft drinks. At least if you are drinking orange or lemon you think … okay, that’s a fruit.”

Almost 60 young adults and parents with at least one child aged under 12 who regularly buy soft drinks were interviewed for the study, involving the University of Adelaide and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

Parents hooked on fizzy drinks admitted they’d turned their kids into soft drink addicts while others got the guilts and gave them to children when they had a beer.

There was limited knowledge of the sugar content of drinks and what constituted excess consumption.

South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute director Prof Caroline Miller told the Sunday Herald Sun: “The most striking finding was people talked a lot about moderation but had no real concrete understanding of what it means.

Fruit flavoured soft drinks are duping families into thinking they're healthier. Picture: Tim Carrafa

“We had people who said they drink sugary drinks in moderation, but would have one or more cans a day.

“Parents have a right to clear information for themselves and their kids.”

People using fizzy drinks to avoid a lack of energy or get a sugar hit after exercise was also a problem.

One parent gave their children Coke after sport because it was “refreshing”.

“Now a child goes to cricket practice and they are given a sugary drink when they get home,’’ Prof Miller said.

“Before they would have oranges and water when they get home and this shift is contributing to obesity as a major epidemic.”

Prof Miller said front-of-pack labelling on sugary drinks and a standardised health-star rating system were needed to better inform shoppers.

But Australian Beverage Council chief executive officer Geoff Parker said the industry believed changes to existing labelling practices were unnecessary.

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“The evidence on population-wide consumption trends shows that over the last 20 years there has been a fundamental shift away from sugar-sweetened drinks in favour of low- and no-sugar varieties, including water,’’ he said.

“Focusing in on a small and declining part of the diet (such as) sugar in soft drinks, will have little or no impact on tackling really complex problems like obesity.”

The Cancer Council SA funded the study, which was published in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia.

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