Studies from WHO / Europe show that baby foods are high in sugar and marketed inappropriately for babies

Two new studies from WHO / Europe show that a high proportion of baby foods are wrongly marketed as suitable for infants under 6 months old and that many of these foods contain too high sugar levels.

The long-standing WHO recommendation states that children should be badfed exclusively for the first six months. Its Global Guide for the Elimination of Inappropriate Promotion of Infant and Toddler Foods, published in 2016, explicitly states that commercial complementary foods should not be advertised for infants under 6 months of age.

"Good nutrition during infancy and early childhood remains essential to ensure optimal child growth and development and to improve health outcomes later in life – including the prevention of overweight, infants and children. obesity and noncommunicable diseases related to food (NCD) – thus making the United Nations for sustainable development Goal 3, which is to ensure a healthy life and promote well-being of all, at all ages, is much more achievable, "said Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe.

Nutritional quality of products

WHO has developed a draft Nutritional Profile Model (NPM) for children aged 6 to 36 months to guide decisions about inappropriate foods for promotion in this age group. This proposal has been submitted to Member States and stakeholders for consideration and further discussion.

WHO / Europe has also developed a methodology to identify commercial baby food available in stores and to collect data on nutritional content on labels, as well as other information. on packaging, labeling and promotion (including claims).

This methodology was used to collect data on 7955 food products or beverages marketed for infants and young children in 516 stores in 4 cities in the European region of WHO (Vienna, Austria, Sofia, Bulgaria). , Budapest, Hungary and Haifa, Israel) 2017 and January 2018.

In the four cities, a significant proportion of products – ranging from 28% to 60% – were marketed as suitable for infants under 6 months of age.

Although this is allowed by European Union legislation, this does not pay tribute to the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes or to WHO guidelines. Both explicitly state that commercial supplement foods should not be marketed as suitable for infants under 6 months of age.

"Foods for infants and young children must comply with various nutrition and composition recommendations. Nevertheless, some fear that many products still contain too much sugar, "says Dr. João Breda, head of WHO's European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases.

In 3 of the cities, half or more of the products provided more than 30% of the calories from total sugars. About one-third of the products cited as an ingredient sugar, concentrated fruit juice or other sweeteners. These added flavors and sugars could affect the development of children's taste preferences by increasing their incentive to eat sweeter foods.

Although foods such as fruits and vegetables naturally containing sugars are suitable for infants and young children, the very high level of free sugars in mashed commercial products is also of concern.

The NPM project for infants and young children has been developed following the steps recommended by WHO and based on data from several sources, including a review of the literature. It refers to existing European Commission directives and Codex Alimentarius standards and reflects the approach used for the WHO / Europe NPM for children older than 36 months.

The NGP project has been validated against the labeling information of 1,328 products marketed in 3 countries in 2016-2017 and has been tested in 7 additional countries in 2018 with 1,314 additional products.

Commercial foods for infants and young children in the European Region of WHO (2019) End the inappropriate promotion of commercially available complementary foods for infants and young children from 6 to 36 months in Europe (2019) Sustainable Development Goal 3: Directions to End Inappropriate Promotion of Food for Infants and Young Children (2016) International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (1981)