Health value of cereal inversely related to how heavily it's marketed to kids

by Marisa McClellan, Posted May 24th 2008 @ 10:00AM

When I was growing up, we were a granola and Cheerios kind of family. Kix cereal was an occasional treat and we were allowed to pick out one sugar cereal a year (on our birthday). This didn't mean that we didn't beg for the other, less healthy cereals that we saw advertised to us during Saturday morning cartoons, but my mom was passionate about keeping brightly colored and sugared flakes, charms and balls out of our cereal bowls.

It seems like she was on to something, as according to a recent report, printed in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the more heavily marketed a cereal is to children, the less healthy it is. Additionally, this same team of researchers at Yale University have found that the health claims made about childrens' cereals are often misleading and false.

According to the study's lead researcher, Dr. Marlene B. Schwartz, parents should seek out cereals that contains 4 grams of sugar per serving (about one teaspoon) or less and that they should aim for 4 grams of fiber per bowl of cereal.

[via Reuters]

Source

Filed Under: Cooking With Kids, Newspapers, Health & Medical, Ingredients
Tags: childrens cereal, ChildrensCereal, food marketing, FoodMarketing, grains, Journal of American Dietetic Association, JournalOfAmericanDieteticAssociation, Yale University, YaleUniversity

Chew on This

Royal Wedding Cake Details Revealed! - YumSugar

Make Your Own Pop Tarts - CHOW
Denny's Introduces a Maple Bacon Sundae - Eater
Whole Foods Opening Bars in Stores - USA Today
Rules Of Bar Etiquette -- For The Bartender - HuffPost Food

Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-25-2008 @12:28AM JC said... Kids sugar cereals may be unhealthly for children but I have learned how to improve the nutritional value of cereal with the health sugar trehalose. This sugar even helps some people lessen their craving for sugars. Some diabetics have had improvements of their sugar load with trehalose. I have posted information and published papers on my blog at www.endowmentmed.org

JC
Reply