Cow and Gate iron calculator: is anyone's dc getting 6.9 mg of iron a day?

[duffpancake]

Cow and Gate are running ads at the moment claiming that most toddlers aren't getting enough iron and therefore need follow-on milk. Out of curiousity I checked out their iron calculator and found (surprise, surprise) that ds (1 yo) is deficient. He is an enormous eater; he eats more than 3 yo dd. If he can't get enough iron from his diet I am very that any toddler can.

Does anyone know where they got their numbers from? (They claim that toddlers need 6.9mg of iron a day and that 80% don't get this.) What's going to happen to that 80%? Something horrible?

It's bollocks to be honest, another way to make parents feel gulity about their child's diet in the hope they start feeding them their shite. A healthy, balanced diet is the key.

Oh FFS.
I find the idea of any Western hemisphere kid brought up in reasonable circumstances as lacking in anything uttelry bonkers anyway.

Nasty fuckers, these people are.
Their only aim is to part you from your ££££££

It just infuriates me that they can spout this stuff on TV and on their website. Needless to say, they don't cite any research on their website. Do you think I could complain to ASA? It just seems that as more and more people get wise to the fact that follow-on milk is totally unnecessary, they just get more aggressive with their advertising.

Yes, they are swines.
Complain away.
i stopped watching tv years ago as i find the whole concept of people forcing crap like thisi nto your home utterly abhorrent.
I dela with enough shit on a daily basis.I don't need to pay for more to weasel its way into my home and preciousl leisure time.

I'd complain. It's bollocks, designed to make parents feel guilty. A baby/toddler doesn't get all the iron from milk, it comes from their diet aswell and it needs to state this on the advert.

Notice that they didn't include breatmilk as an option?

This makes me so mad. We are all here, therefore the human race has survived. And (shock horror) it's survived for all these millennia without Cow and Gate!

tis a load of crap

I love how they say, your child would need to drink this much milk to get his daily iron

and at the same time they are running a disclaimer saying 'cows milk is not a good source of iron' lol

Belle, I just wonder if the figure is even correct. I give my dcs cows' milk but I don't believe they necessarily need it after a year. According to the C&G calculator they would basically have to be eating meat at every meal to get that amount.

For those results to be valid it needs to be a vaild study so they should show where these results are from. As far as I am aware (I just swear at the TV when this comes on), there's no details stating where they have got this info from.

I've emailed them asking them to cite the research.

Yay! Can you put their response up on here please so I can pick at it?

different - I know, pretty awful. They should legally have to show BM as an option - but of course that would show them up to be something other than the fluffy, child-friendly company they would have us believe they are.

Will do.

I'd like to know more about the research done here

There's loads on research on there differentID, just click on the numbers, it's all supported by journals.

oh yes!

That site seems to corroborate C&G's claim of 6.9 mg (it says 7 mg for 1-3 yos) id; according to their data a dc would have to eat 276g of beef a day to get that. Really? Really?

once I realised that the portion size for baked beans was so small my 3 year old was on 6.5. we eat wholemeal bread and she had had half a tin of beans for tea. The whole thing made me cross as milk does not contain much iron and is not an adult's source of iron. it is more important to eat lots of different things than glug follow on milk.peas have iron too and so does wholemeal pasta. my NHs birth to 5 book says not to give toddlers too much wholemeal stuff but mine seem ok on it and I'm not going out to buy white bread specially for them .

I complained to the ASA about that advert. It's completely misleading.

Belle, response here:

Thank you very much for your query regarding iron.

Iron is an important nutrient in a baby's diet especially when they are growing. Between the age of 1 to 3 years old the level of iron that they should receive is 6.9mg per day and this comes from the Department of Health guidelines. We do not know the exact measurement for the child over 3 years old but I imagine as your baby grows and becomes more active the recommended iron intake will increase.

Iron is very important for the formation and destruction of red blood cells. Iron deficiency leads to a reduced ability to transport iron around the body, lethargy, loss of appetite, delayed / impaired mental and motor development. Unfortunately iron deficiency is becoming much more common now so this is why it is very important that a toddler has a good well balanced diet.

We hope that this has answered your question regarding the iron in the Growing Up milk. If you wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact the Careline on 0845 7623 623.

It seems that the 6.9 g figure is official so I have complained to the ASA on the basis that toddlers should be getting their iron from their diet and not milk or follow-on milk.

As ds2 almost lives on eggs, ham and broccoli, I'm not concerned.

Lol! Just did that, I've seen the advert a few times but not concerned enough to check. My dd (3.5) had a 3 egg omlette this morning and 2 slices of toast! Also ate loads of smoked salmon today as MIL brought some back from her holidays. She is a petite little thing but packs her food away like nothing else! I'm not concerned about her iron intake, I am hoping she'll grow soon though.

Slightly off topic, but LooL00 did you notice that in another bit of the NHS Birth to 5 book it says not to give them white bread (something about it getting too claggy and being a chocking hazard I think). Then later on it says not to give them wholemeal either. No wonder people are confused about what to feed their kids.

The portion sizes on that site are tiny. Ds got up to the recommended amount mainly on upping the weeny bowl of cereal to a decent size.