We posted a few days ago about how 80% of Kids Commercials on Nickelodeon are for junk food. Junk cereal is also in the mix. If you were wondering how bad the situation is, watch the spot below for Froot Loops and Apple Jacks [Hat tip to Change.org]. Anyone still believe that the food industry isn’t manipulating kids?

For decades, advertisers sold kids cereals as fun, but now they are appealing to a 5 year old’s health and nutrition concerns. Thank you, Kellogg’s, for misinforming our children, creatively, once again.

What you need to know:

Let’s forget for a minute the sexist role play (Male doctor, female receptionist..)

The cutesy commercial fails to mention that Froot Loops includes trans fat, is 44% sugar by weight, and contains controversial artificial colorings that may prevent  any of these kids from being able to concentrate long enough to learn about nutrition. Apple Jacks is not much better.

What to do at the supermarket:

Breakfast cereals should contain much more fiber (5 grams and up) and much less sugar (6 grams or less). A kid oriented cereal will usually not be up to par. But you can buy a “grownup” cereal and sweeten it at home with a teaspoon of honey or sliced bananas.

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USA Today has two stories out about a recent research project by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. The findings were presented in Washington DC as part of the annual meeting of the Obesity Society. Here’s what they found:

Cereals marketed to kids have 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber and 60% more sodium than those aimed at adults!

Some more interesting facts:

•The least nutritious cereals are  the most heavily marketed to children – Reese’s Puffs, Corn Pops, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cap’n Crunch.

•Some of the products with the poorest nutrition ratings have health claims on the boxes.

•The average preschooler sees 642 TV cereal ads a year; most are for types with the worst nutrition ratings.

•Cereal companies spend more than $156 million a year marketing to children.

This study shines an even brighter light on the ludicrous Smart Choices Program, terminated this weekend, which elevated candy breakfasts such as Froot Loops and Apple Jacks to a “nutritious” status.

As Expected, the major cereal manufacturers have an answer though:

General Mills spokeswoman Heidi Geller says kids who eat cereal more frequently, including pre-sweetened cereals, “tend to weigh less than kids who eat cereal less frequently — and they are better nourished.”

The Rudd center put together a great website called Cereal Facts, that lets parents search cereals by name or manufacturer, and then receive a nutrition ranking, including information about the product.

What to do at the supermarket:

Look for cereals that are high in fiber (3 grams and up per serving), low in sugar (less than 6 grams), and low in sodium (less than 120mg). If your kids complain that they are not sweet enough – you can always add a spoonful of honey, maple syrup, or sugar to the milk.

Click here for a list of the top 10 cereals according to Cereal Facts. In the list are shredded wheat products from Kashi, Barbara’s Bakery, Nature’s Path and the big players too.

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One of the interesting sessions here at the annual Food and Nutrition Conference in Denver hosted a panel of 3 experts who presented their views on what the rating systems are, why and how they were created, and how they will improve nutrition.

First up was  Susan Crockett, PhD, RD, FADA, who for the last 10 years has been with General Mills. She presented the Smart Choices program of Fruit Loop infamy, and addressed the specific backlash against pre-sweetened cereal. In her attempt to justify the benchmark that allows such a culinary and nutrition horror to be considered a smart choice, Dr. Crocket first provided a background on how General Mills is committed to health and nutrition. She then showed that the Smart Choice panel was composed of both industry and academic experts, and lastly dug deep into the numbers to show how the benchmark for cereals was chosen.

Let us say that we commend General Mills that contribute 5% of pretax profit to nutrition and wellness programs. That was about $80M last year. But let’s not forget that this is a huge profit driven enterprise. The company and its peers has seen consumer confusion regarding nutrition labels and decided to handle it as a business opportunity. Working with “non-industry” experts is a way to lend credibility to the program. However, many experts are affiliated in some way or another with the industry.

As to sugar in cereal – the Smart Choices panel took a recommendation for 10% of daily calories from added sugar. In a 2000 calorie a day diet, that means 200 calories. They divided the 200 calories into 4 eating events of 50 calories. 12 grams of sugar, which is what you’ll find in Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and others, add up to 48 calories per serving. And that, by their book is a Smart Choice. Wonderful, no?

We were left with some hope, as Dr. Crocket said that Smart Choices is continually evolving, and that with time benchmarks will be adapted to feedback from the field.

Next speaker was Annette Maggi, MS, RD, LD, FADA from NuVal. Maggi is the director of the business arm of NuVal, which licenses its 1-100 rating system to supermarkets for display on shelf tags. The NuVal system was not funded by the industry, rather by a group of scientists with a stated goal of becoming a nutrition GPS at the supermarket. The idea is to tag every single product in the supermarket with a score. That way, in the supermarket, people can compare products within a category.

So far 33,000 products have been scored. In an earlier talk we had with Prof. Keith Ayoob, of the Nuval Scientific board, he said that the group was working on rating over 100,000 items in supermarkets. The Nuval algorithm is quite complex when compared to Smart Choices, with hundreds of factors taken into consideration for each product.

Without referring specifically to Smart Choices, Maggi stated that one of the clear advantages of NuVal was its independence. A Kraft PR spokesperson tried to refute that statement in the ensuing Q&A by mentioning that the wife of one of the NuVal board members has a conflict of interest.

Last to present was Susan Moores, MS, RD who does not represent any rating system, but has been working with grocers on a variety of health and nutrition issues over the years. She provided an interesting viewpoint whose main message was stop looking for the numbers and the stickers, focus on the food: “A number will not put a meal on the table”.

Moores said that the nutrition labels have had an effect on industry. Food manufactures have reformulated products to get better scores. For example, the notorious Froot Loops lowered sugar by one gram and upped fiber by one gram. Supermarkets who adopt one system or other are able to differentiate themselves.

Mostly though, these programs have created controversy and chaos. And wherever there is a mess, there’s an opportunity for dietitians to help their clients  with guidance and sound advice.

The session was very informative, but did not provide any substantially new information. Our position is that any industry funded rating system is inherently flawed because of the direct conflict of interest between companies’ need to sell more processed food to make more money, and consumers’ need to get away from these types of foods.

What to do at the supermarket:

Skip the health claims, benchmarks, and other marketing tricks. Learn to read a nutrition panel and familiarize yourself with ingredients to watch out for in the ingredient list. When sugar is the first ingredient in a cereal, that is not a smart choice, no matter how many PhDs in the room will tell you it is.

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