The vast majority of infant and toddler foods found on supermarket shelves are failing to meet international nutrition standards as the federal government investigates options to crack down on misleading marketing claims.
Ready-to-go bowls, pouches and sachet meals have become popular with Australian families because of their convenience, but analysis by researchers at Monash University found only 23 per cent of products marketed as suitable for infants and toddlers met the World Health Organisation’s nutrient content requirements for children aged between six and 36 months.
Researchers say very few baby foods on the market meet the WHO guidelines.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald
None of the 45 products examined met all the organisation’s labelling requirements – meaning every single product included at least one marketing claim that breached guidelines.
Alexandra Chung, a senior lecturer in nutrition and food at Monash University and one of the study’s co-authors, said Australia’s food standards code strictly enforces nutrition requirements such as sodium content but does not regulate marketing claims that describe products as “natural”, having “no nasties” or being “for tiny hands”.
“They really idealise the food products, but they don’t have to actually demonstrate how that claim might be true,” Chung said. “There’s a real gap in the regulation.”
Monash University’s Dr Alexandra Chung.
Chung said parents wanted to choose healthy foods for their children but were limited in their options because so few products stocked by major supermarkets met basic nutrition requirements.
“These products have a place on the supermarket shelf – we need to really make sure they are as nutritionally sound as possible,” she said.
The study, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition earlier this month, is the first to evaluate products sold in Australian supermarkets against the World Health Organisation’s Nutrient and Promotion Profile Model.
Previous Australian research has revealed a high number of unregulated and potentially misleading claims on baby and toddler food packaging. Earlier this year, peak medical bodies urged the federal government to overhaul the voluntary code for manufacturers of baby formulas containing high and unnecessary amounts of sugar.
Lauren Brenton, a mother-of-four and midwife from Caringbah, south-east Sydney, makes her own vegetable purées but turned to toddler snacks when she was looking for something easy to feed her children when they were young.
Lauren Brenton is one of many parents who have turned to toddler snacks marketed as healthy and convenient.Credit: Janie Barrett
Many of them were marketed as containing “real fruit” or being “natural”, but the ingredients list told a different story.
“It makes me kind of angry … I’m specifically buying things that are a lot more expensive because they are marketed that way,” she said. “Parents don’t know what they’re actually buying.”
Federal Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney said she was “seriously concerned” by the figures and was working with the states and territories to improve the composition, nutritional profile and labelling of foods.
“As a nurse, mum and grandmother, I want to make sure that Aussie kids have the best start in life,” she said. “Kids’ food is high in sugar and covered in confusing and misleading claims. It’s not good enough.”
A consultation paper prepared for Australia’s food ministers earlier this year noted that most commercial foods for infants and young children did not provide adequate nutrients critical for early development. Many products were high in energy and sugars.
The paper, written by health bureaucrats from across Australia and New Zealand, was critical of industry labelling practices, noting they “may be misleading and do not support parents and caregivers to make the best informed choices”.
Any change to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code would require a request from food ministers followed by a consultation process, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Aged Care said.
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