For some years now, foods have been on the market that are highlighted by special advertising measures as being especially suitable for children. They are summarized under the term “children’s food”. However, there is no definition of this term under food law.
Children’s foods on the rise
The most widely advertised children’s foods are sweets such as vitamin candies, milk slices, and candy bars, followed by dairy products (mixed milk drinks, fruit yogurt, cream cheese and cottage cheese preparations), breakfast snacks (cereals, crunchy flakes of various kinds), spreads (nut-nougat creams, chocolate creams, sausage), convenience products (ready-to-eat meals such as pasta soups, dishes, pizza) and beverages (calcium-enriched juices, multivitamin juices, soft drinks). The number of children’s food products in Germany has multiplied in recent years. These products are advertised especially in children’s programs and on weekends, primarily on private television channels. Warnings, for example regarding increased fat and sugar content, are completely absent. In contrast, emphasis is placed on vitamin and mineral supplements, which are supposed to ensure that children’s foods are particularly valuable for nutrition. Colorful packaging, small portions, advertising rhymes and additional gifts in children’s foods, as well as crackling, crunching, crispy or pleasantly soft “mouth experiences” when chewing, all lead to children developing great brand loyalty.
Do we need children’s foods? What’s in it and what’s in it?
From a nutritional perspective, we don’t need children’s foods because children can be safely and well nourished with conventional foods after the first year of life. Children’s foods are often sweet and fatty snack items that are primarily intended to be eaten between meals. 75 percent of children’s foods contain sugar in not insignificant proportions, including children’s drinks and children’s milk products. In these cases, they have too many calories and must be treated like candy in terms of the amount consumed: something does no harm if the diet is otherwise healthy. They are not suitable as a snack, however, because they crowd out the more nutritious main meals. Schoolchildren should not consume more than 50 to 60 grams of sugar per day. This is, for example, in two servings (250 grams) of children’s yogurt, two glasses of lemonade or two chocolate bars. The additional enrichment with vitamins and minerals in children’s foods does not make the fat and sugar contained at the same time any healthier: A nine-year-old child would have to eat 17 milk slices to cover its daily calcium requirement. But at the same time, he or she would have consumed 40 sugar cubes (120 grams) and half a packet of butter!
Some tips to help you buy
- Milkshakes and children’s bars are often half sugar. They are also often fat traps, because in most cases they contain as much fat (one-third of the total amount) as pure chocolate. As a “healthy snack” they are therefore not suitable.
- For children’s yogurts, in addition to the sugar content, make sure to buy a yogurt-based product, because it contains far less fat compared to cream cheese yogurts. Lemonades and fizzy drinks contain only water, flavorings and a lot of sugar instead of fruit juice.
- In the fruit juice drinks is only 6 to 30 percent fruit juice. Children’s drinks on this basis are often upgraded by adding calcium and vitamins. Hereby gets an intrinsically low in minerals and vitamins, in addition, heavily sugared food a healthy image, which it does not deserve.
- Breakfast cereals can contain up to 40 percent sugar. They are among the most processed of children’s foods and consist mainly of flour, water, sugar and flavorings, as well as a long list of added vitamins and minerals. Good old muesli made from oatmeal and fruit is usually clearly superior to ready-made mixes. If, nevertheless, a ready-made muesli is bought, one should make sure that no additional sugar has been added.
- Recently, there are also special children’s menus, children’s soups and sausage for children. Behind the colorful packaging with the great fantasy names hide basically, however, only normal dishes, as they also eat the adults.In addition, the Stiftung Warentest criticized that children’s ready meals contained too much salt, too much sauce and too few vegetables.
Additives can make you sick and cover up a lack of quality
Children’s foods are highly processed products. The longer the list of ingredients on the packaging, the higher the degree of processing. The order of the ingredients can be used to infer the quantities: What’s in the most is at the top. Most additives are declared in the ingredient list of the respective food with E-numbers or an abstract class name.
Flavors
Almost all compounded products for children (for example, puree, tomato soup) contain flavorings. According to the Food Act, additives must be harmless to health and technologically necessary, but this is a matter of interpretation. Thus, one naturally questions the usefulness of countless colorings and flavorings, and one might suspect that they are often intended to cover up a lack of quality: A bagged chicken soup, which often contains less than ten grams of meat, must get its chicken flavor from somewhere else. The colorant, for example, can also feign the absence of fruit. Allergies can also develop to some dyes and preservatives. Asthmatics, aspirin allergy sufferers and people with eczema are among the most vulnerable group of people. It is thought that children’s tastes become attuned to the added flavors in children’s foods, and this habituation causes them to turn away from natural foods. For example, the artificial vanilla flavoring vanillin is four times stronger than that of real vanilla. Therefore, the consequence is that after consuming some flavored ready-made desserts, we find the pudding prepared with real vanilla bland.
Sugar substitutes and sweeteners
The situation is similar with the addition of sugar substitutes. These are sweetening substances with a similar energy content to sugar. They are suitable for diabetics, and many of them are not broken down by the bacteria that cause tooth decay. For this reason, sugar substitutes are found primarily in chewing gum and candies declared “sugar-free.” A side effect of these substances can be diarrhea. If a food contains more than ten percent sugar substitutes, a corresponding warning must therefore appear on the packaging. There are also calorie-free sweeteners. They have up to 3,000 times the sweetening power of sugar. Neither of these sweeteners is recommended for children, as they increasingly raise the threshold of sweetness. Through them, the preference for the taste of “sweet” increases more and more in children.
Ways to a health-conscious diet
The best way to a healthy diet is to consume whole grain products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and low-fat cooking. However, you should not make the mistake of trying to change your offspring’s eating habits through mere exhortations. Rather, appeal to your children’s hearts and emotions through a shared, happy and fun day of eating. Cook meals that can be played with while eating (alphabet soup, spaghetti) and encourage your offspring’s independence: let your children choose what they want to eat more often. When preparing a fruit salad, even younger children can help. Schoolchildren should be able to decide for themselves what they want on their lunch. Let your child choose the amounts he or she wants to eat. Food should never be taught to children as a comfort food, punishment or reward. Instead of sweets and snacks, a plate of small cut fruits and vegetables can be placed in the child’s room. You should keep in mind that children prefer smaller portions and have a strong sense of aesthetics. Therefore, it is better to pack the school lunch so that it does not get muddied with the fruit and vegetable side dishes. If you provide a low-calorie and varied meal in this way, then your children can happily snack on “kid foods” once in a while.
