In the news: Labour would ban high-fat, high-sugar foods aimed at children - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

Interesting story in the news today: shadow health secretary Andy Burnham is going to pledge to set statutory maximum limits on levels of fat, salt and sugar in food which is marketed to children. Currently, limits are voluntary and industry-regulated.

He'll argue that society should be doing more to ensure that all children - 15% of whom are currently categorised as obese - have a healthy start in life. We'd love to know what you think: is this something that should be government-regulated - and will it work?

I think that it would make more sense simply not to market food directly at children - remove all the "munch bunch" and honey monster nonsense.

Children need fat in their food, though. That one's barking up the wrong tree.

Surely if you reduce or remove one you have to fill it full of other crap to make it taste half decent or last?

I agree with not marketing food at children and just making food. food that's not so highly processed it takes a ton of salt and sugar to make it edible ?

fat is not the enemy. I'd take higher fat content in real food over reduced sugar and fat but filled with additives and sweeteners food.

Very interesting idea - there's far too much 'junk' food aimed at kids IMO.

Limiting sugar content etc in kids food sounds like a step in the right direction. I bet the food industry will kick off about this though.

Although isn't full fat dairy produce recommended for young children? Will that still be compatible with the new proposals?

I'd ban food marketing full stop (feeling grumpy today). Anything with a brand and a marketing budget is usually packed full of crap! Does milk have a marketing budget, or lettuce, or chickpeas????

I agree in principle- I love overseas where we don't have tv advertising and the increase in pester power from my two when we're in the UK is really noticeable.

But not sure if it's actually workable- what is the definition of 'marketed to children'? for a start. Also I think they'll run into trouble on the percentages as well- you won't be able to market cheese to children?? Full fat yoghurt?

Is only worth it, as already mentioned, if the food isn't crammed full of other (shit) fillers.

And yes, children need a high level,of decent fat in their diets, so no point in making everything 'fat free' - it's already hard enough to find full fat products as it is - I have 3 supermarkets in my town, only 1 stocks full fat natural yoghurt (ie one not full of sugar, flavourings and sweeteners). And then only one brand.

Taking away direct marketing at children is a good idea. A better one is promoting proper, healthy foods, rather than processed (whether full of fat and sugar or not) junk.

I think they'd be better taxing junk food like cigarettes and using the money to subsidise vegetables for low income families.

I agree with this for sugar. Not so much for fat. Fat should make up a fair proportion of the diet, especially in children. Lots of super healthy foods are high in fat. Avocados, almonds, olive oil, oily fish. However none of those are specifically marketed to children, so maybe not a problem.

I am interested to know how this would actually be done. My DC love biscuits, both those which are marketed to children and those which aren't, they don't mind. Jammy dodger or chocolate digestive - equally unhealthy I imagine.

upping the actual meat content would be a start to.

chicken nuggets should be chicken and breadcrumb with small traces of say egg flour and a pinch of seasoning.

yet they look nothing like actual chicken.

lowering fillers and upping the content of what it's supposed to be....???

Disagree totally with this. Children (and adults!) need fat in their diets. This includes saturated fats.

Sugar is a better one to cut out, but I worry artificial sweeteners will end up being used more instead. I don't like my children eating lots of sugar, but I'll always choose the full sugar version over artificial sweeteners.

in fact I fear this would give them carte blanch to do god knows what with the food.

fat Sugar and salt, whereas not always desirable I vast quantities are at least natural ingredients or naturally present in food.

to remove it would require another form.of processing wouldn't it?

how's that a good thing

Posted too early. I think a better focus would be reducing how much processed food children eat. Low fat and low sugar does the opposite, IMO.

The State thinking that it has the responsibility and time to legislate (and no doubt taxing) to stop PARENTS buying and ‘enabling’ our children to the wrong ‘stuff’, even within a balanced diet, is going back to the last Labour government who feel they need to look busy governing, and over 13-years made at least a law a day.

What are we going to do, form a new Obese Child department/quango?

Apparently while having the most need in Europe to feed children via food banks, the UK also having the most obese, so something is clearly wrong that can't be explained by not having a Mediterranean diet – but how much could be done to bring the general child (and grown up) obesity problem down, if PARENTS took more responsibility, and our young ‘sofa bears’ took more exercise?

God knows there are enough healthy eating TV programmes on EVERY channel (aside from James Martin and his use of butter on early Saturday morning aside lol) to inspire parents to monitor ingredients.

Children under 2 shouldn't have low-fat food, muesli-belt malnutrition anybody? People with cystic fibrosis should never have low-fat food. DS1 has CF and I'm glad he's now an adult and I didn't have to deal with this when he was little.

I can't see it working, sadly. But anyway I agree that limiting fat is ridiculous in children - they need fat to create new cells as they grow, all cells have fatty acids and cholesterol in their make-up so limiting fat in the diet will have an impact on their growth. Nerve cells in particular need extra fat, but ALL cells require it.
There is also the point that fat is required to absorb fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E, K1 and K2. Vitamin D insufficiency is becoming more of a problem in the UK as more people use sunscreen on a regular basis, and this also has an impact on growth, as it helps with calcium absorption, which is required for bone growth; BUT also vit K2 (menaquinone) is required to make sure calcium is used where it should be. and menaquinone is found primarily in the fat content of grass-fed animals (including the egg yolk of grass-fed chickens).

I'm not saying they should have a block of butter every day. But they need fat, in decent quantities (and decent quality, none of your low-fat spread stuff) to grow properly.

No one needs sugar.

Agree with Isitme.

It's the parents buying the stuff, not the children. The parents have the opportunity to ignore the 'unhealthy' and go for the 'healthy' but choose not to. How do you police that?

i completely disagree with this - last time I looked parents were responsible for buying groceries and food not children. maybe if parents took responsibility for their shopping habits they wouldn't need to ban stuff. pestered for sweets - just say no - end of! - your the parent - control your child and make them listen.

I think it's a good idea. it's about processed foods though, not greek yoghurt.

You can use semi skimmed milk in cooking for under 2 year olds. I disagree with the current 'eat as much fat as you like' mumsnet mindset, diet is about balance and eating mostly as close to nature as possible. There are loads of naturally low fat foods. I agree sugar is more likely to make you overweight but that's a different argument. I also don't have an issue with artficial sweeteners particularly, in moderation. I think they are better than sugar.

What a stupid idea. The law should instead protect our incomes (through actual income and also managing costs of living like housing) and our free time so that parents have the money and time to cook proper food and informally educate their children about healthy living and eating (which involves family time outdoors, cooking together, generaly taking care of the good stuff)

Bunting, but then low-income families with CF children wouldn't be able to afford all the high-fat snacks that a CF child needs. DS1 had his own snack cupboard in the kitchen from when he was diagnosed at 5.5, full of crisps and Mars bars. He was too young to cut himself a slice of cheese or whatever. Extra fruit and vegetables wouldn't have helped.

diet is indeed about balance. Although some of the diet peddlers don't seem to know that - a well known slimming group suggests eating the low fat version of some crappy instant pasta meal. Due to the added sugar in all low-fat processed foods, it actually has MORE calories than the standard version.

Artificial sweeteners taste revolting in my opinion. Add some sugar and go for a brisk walk.

don't buy food in pretty boxes. It really isn't hard.

Bathsheba To be fair, 50% of the population is fat. Only 9000 of the population has CF. On that basis, public policy should probably reflect the needs of the former, with exemptions made for the latter.

The whole world needs to stop demonizing fat. Sugar is what makes people fat. Processed refined sugars like white bread and pasta should be targeted. They need to update their research.

I'm fed up with the state telling me what to do.

If I wanted a nanny I would have hired one.

I'd rather the state told me what to do than have to pick up the tab for the obesity time bomb though.

This thread does however, underline the problem, which is that no-one can really agree what the problem is. Most slim people seem to stay so through portion control rather than eliminating food groups. However, arguably, the number of people able to exercise this sort of control in a calorie rich environment is quite small, so possibly more radical measures are called for.