WHO/Europe studies find baby foods are high in sugar and inappropriately marketed for babies
BRUSSELS. KAZINFORM Two new studies from WHO/Europe show that a high proportion of baby foods are incorrectly marketed as suitable for infants under the age of 6 months, and that many of those foods contain inappropriately high levels of sugar.
WHO’slong-standing recommendation states that children should be breastfed,exclusively, for the first 6 months. Its 2016 global Guidance on Ending theInappropriate Promotion of Foods for Infants and Young Children explicitlystates that commercial complementary foods should not be advertised for infantsunder 6 months of age, WHO’s official website reads.
«Goodnutrition in infancy and early childhood remains key to ensuring optimal childgrowth and development, and to better health outcomes later in life – includingthe prevention of overweight, obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases(NCDs) – thereby making United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 to ensurehealthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages much more achievable,»says Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
Nutritionalquality of products
WHOdeveloped a draft Nutrient Profile Model (NPM) for children aged 6–36 months toguide decisions about which foods are inappropriate for promotion for this agegroup. This was put forward to Member States and stakeholders for considerationand further discussion.
WHO/Europealso developed a methodology for identifying commercial baby foods available inretail settings, and for collecting nutritional content data on labels as wellas other information from packaging, labelling and promotion (includingclaims).
Thismethodology was used to collect data on 7955 food or drink products marketedfor infants and young children from 516 stores in 4 cites in the WHO EuropeanRegion (Vienna, Austria; Sofia, Bulgaria; Budapest, Hungary; and Haifa, Israel)between November 2017 and January 2018.
In all 4cities, a substantial proportion of the products – ranging from 28% to 60% –were marketed as being suitable for infants under the age of 6 months.
Althoughthis is permitted under European Union law, it does not pay tribute to the WHOInternational Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes or the WHO Guidance.Both explicitly state that commercial complementary foods should not bemarketed as suitable for infants under 6 months of age.
«Foods forinfants and young children are expected to comply with various establishednutrition and compositional recommendations. Nonetheless, there are concernsthat many products may still be too high in sugars,» says Dr João Breda, Headof the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of NoncommunicableDiseases.
In 3 of thecities, half or more of the products provided over 30% of the calories fromtotal sugars. Around a third of the products listed sugar, concentrated fruitjuice or other sweetening agents as an ingredient. These added flavours andsugars could affect the development of children’s taste preferences byincreasing their liking for sweeter foods.
Althoughfoods such as fruits and vegetables that naturally contain sugars areappropriate for infants and young children, the very high level of free sugarsin puréed commercial products is also cause for concern.
The draftNPM for infants and young children was developed by following recommended WHOsteps, and was informed by data from several sources, including a literaturereview. It refers to existing European Commission directives and CodexAlimentarius standards, and reflects the approach used for the WHO/Europe NPMfor children over 36 months.
The draftNPM was validated against label information from 1328 products on the market in3 countries in 2016–2017, and pilot-tested in 7 additional countries in 2018with a further 1314 products.