Toddlers in the UK get almost half of their calories from ultra processed foods (UPFs), study finds.
Researchers from the department of behavioural science and health at the University College London (UCL) found that toddlers obtain 47% of their calories from processed foods like puddings and sweet cereals, which are typically seen as healthy.
Dr Rana Conway, lead author of the study said: ‘Some wholegrain cereals and flavoured yoghurts have high levels of added sugar and salt and our study found that toddlers who consumed more ultra-processed foods also had a higher intake of these ingredients.
‘Aside from sugar and salt, a diet that includes a lot of ultra-processed food is less likely to get children used to the natural flavours of whole foods and therefore less likely to encourage healthy eating later in life.’
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The study looked at data of about 2,500 children born in the UK in 2007 and 2008 whose parents recorded what their children ate and drank over three days. They found that the intake of UPFs in toddlerhood was predictive of consumption levels at age seven. Toddlers who consumed the most UPFs were 9.4 times more likely to be in the highest UPF-consuming group at age seven, compared to toddlers who consumed the lowest proportion.
The researchers acknowledged the limitations of the study; people of white ethnicity and a higher socioeconomic status were over-represented in their sample compared with the UK population. The research also relied on data from some children born 17 years ago.
However, the authors said that there were no other contemporary datasets that had measured dietary intake in great detail at this early age in a large, representative sample, with repeated measures in the same children.
Dr Conway said: ‘It’s not easy to feed children healthily in our current food environment. Highly processed foods are often cheaper than the foods parents would like to give their children, such as fresh fruit and vegetables. Also, despite labels suggesting they’re a healthy choice, ultra-processed foods marketed for children often contain too much sugar and salt. This makes it harder for parents to make healthy choices.’
The researchers have called for policies to ‘redress the balance of children's diets toward a lower proportion of UPF, such as adding warning labels to products, inclusive school food policies and subsidies on fresh and minimally processed food’.