Soft drinks - The Food Commission

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abiesBoots serves upflavoured water fornewbornsThe World Health Organization recommendsthat babies should drink breastmilkexclusively for the first six months of life, aprinciple adopted by the UK’s Department ofHealth. Breastfeeding is protective against ahost of ailments and diseases, ranging fromallergies and digestive disorders to diabetesand heart disease.Dietitians generally stick to the ‘sixmonths breastfeeding’ advice, with somesaying that water can be introduced into thebaby’s diet at around four months,especially in hot weather. But for youngerand newborn infants, nutritious breastmilkshould be their sole source of fluid.However, contrary to such sound advice,the pharmaceutical retailer Boots haslaunched a new product range offlavoured water designed forbabies ‘from four weeks’. Theingredients are water, flavouringand citric acid.Not only is this a veryexpensive way of buying water(over £5 per litre); but do babiesBoots is not the only companygiving product advice that isunlikely to match up withguidance from dietitians.Meridian Apple JuiceConcentrate (left) is describedas a ‘baby juice’. The companydoes give advice on diluting thehighly concentrated product, butBadvertisementHow old is an infant?Because of their small size, babies andinfants are especially vulnerable tocontaminants and additives in their food.That’s why the food regulations banartificial sweeteners from foods and drinksfor babies and young children. Yet manyproducts designed for very young childrendo contain artificial sweeteners, such as thiscarton of Thomas & Friends Apple &Blackcurrant juice drink.Toddlers are the main audience forThomas the Tank Engine, yet this productcontains only 15% juice, with artificialreally need their first contact with water tobe adulterated with peach, blackcurrant,strawberry or apple flavourings?says that up to five drinks a day would besuitable for a four-month-old baby.No advice is given on the bottle relatingto dental health care despite the fact thateven after dilution this is a very sugarydrink. Five times a day is a high level ofexposure to sugar for newly developingteeth, especially if the baby is alsoconsuming sugars in other foods.sweetenersAspartame andAcesulfame K.How shouldparents judgewhat age theirchild must be inorder for artificialsweeteners to be‘safe’? Theregulations do notsay, and neither does thiscarton.Toddlertop putsteethat riskHow can one tiny piece ofplastic pose a serious threatto toddlers’ teeth?This new screw-on top,available in Tesco and sent tous by a concerned dentalspecialist, is called anAnywayup Toddler Top and fitsonto plastic bottles. The designof the screw-on top means thatwhichever way up the bottle isheld, fluid cannot leak out. Thismight seem handy for mums, but itis not so handy for teeth.We have found that the AnywayupToddler Top is a perfect fit for products such asCoca-Cola, 7-Up, Irn Bru and Panda Pops – allhighly sugary products. It also fits onto severalpopular varieties of sweetened squashes andflavoured fruit drinks, but not onto milk bottles.One of the main threats to newly formedtoddler teeth is frequent exposure to sugaryfoods and drinks. Yet this is just the sort ofexposure encouraged by a top that allowssugary drinks to be sipped frequentlythroughout the day. This drip-feeds sugar into atoddler’s mouth, creating a perfect environmentfor tooth-rotting bacteria to thrive.The British Dental Association says thataround a third of children will have one or moreof their teeth extracted before the age of five.The majority of these extractions could beprevented by better dental care and healthiereating and drinking habits.We have raised our concerns about theAnywayup Toddler Top with the company thatproduces them, and with Tesco, the FoodStandards Agency and the local tradingstandards officer responsible for Anywayupproducts. On grounds of safety and health, wethink this top should be withdrawn from sale.Mandy Haberman,the inventor ofAnywayup ToddlerTops andAnywayup Cupsthat have also beencriticised bydentists forencouragingchildren to sip onsugary drinksthroughout the day.Food Magazine 64 4 Jan/Mar 2004
healthToy adverts promotephysical inactivityPromotion of food accounts for almost half ofall advertising broadcast during children’s TVviewing times, representing by far the largestcategory of advertisements shown. Themajority of the foods and drinks promoted tochildren in this way are high in fat, sugarand/or salt, fueling calls for a restriction onfood advertising to children. The advertiseddiet is grossly unbalanced, doing little tosupport healthy food choices.In the lead-up to Christmas, toys tend totake over from food as the largest category ofadvertisements shown on children’s TV. Sincean increase in physicalactivity could help childrentowards using up some oftheir extra calories fromthe snacks and drinksusually promoted, wewondered: could toyshelp to promote amore activelifestyle?We kept a note of products promotedduring Saturday morning children’s televisionon a weekend just before Christmas.Amongst children’s programmessponsored by Ribena and Walkers Squarescrisps, and interspersed with ads forMcDonald’s, Burger King and Frosties cereal,we found that almost all of the Christmas toysand games were for products to be playedsitting on the floor or at the table, or forchildren’s movies.Only two out of 25 toy and game advertsinvolved some physical activity – the partygame Twister, and a Junior Ready SteadyCook Popcorn Maker, in which children mightwalk around the kitchen to gather ingredients,shortly before making a snack.Some organisations are now recognisingthat a balanced approach to tackling obesityinvolves healthy eating and active play.The National Association of Toy Librariesand the British Toy and Hobby Association(BTHA), representing several toymanufacturers, are working to promote activeand physical play. Guidance has been issuedto toy libraries about healthy eating duringplay sessions and avoiding sponsorship bycompanies marketing unhealthy messages tochildren. The annual Good Toy Guide includesan award for outdoor toys and BTHA isexamining how to develop materials for indooractive play.Perhaps the food industry could take a leafout of the toymakers’ book and develophealthier products and healthier promotions.Even old-fashioned toys like tricycles nowhave added motors so that children do nothave to pedal as they playKrispy Kreme targetsdisability charityWe hoped it wouldn’t happen in the UK, but howwrong we were. The US doughnut companyKrispy Kreme (see FM63: Krispy Kremes ‘donought’ for health) has started to market itshigh-sugar, high-fat products to UK nurseryschools and, worse still, to a disability charity.Krispy Kreme opened its first UK store inHarrods in autumn 2003. At the launch, one‘lucky’ customer won 24 free doughnuts aweek for a year, equivalent to an extra half kiloof sugar and 400g of fat every week. KrispyKreme has been dubbed by the UK media ‘theheart attack with a hole’.At a time when the UK government isconsidering restricting marketing of unhealthyfood to children (see page 24), Krispy Kreme’sPR company sent letters to nursery schools inLondon, encouraging them to raise money byselling doughnuts, by the dozen, to raise extracash. The more they sold, the nursery schoolswere advised, the more money the schoolswould make.And while parliament’s Health Committeemet to examine the causes of obesity, KrispyKreme’s PR company was writing to acommunity disability charity in West Londonencouraging it to raise funds by marketing andselling Krispy Kreme doughnuts – offering halfthe purchase price to the charity.A recent study of 145,000 adults inMassachusetts found that 25% of people withdisabilities were obese compared to 15% ofpeople without disabilities. People with physicaldisabilities may be unable to be as physicallyactive as those without, so it seems highlyinappropriate for a company to promotecalorie-dense foods through a disability charityin this way. To add insult to injury we are toldthat the PR company invited the disabilitycharity to attend a breakfast briefing at a hotelin London which had no disability access!Irradiation company goes bustA leading maker of food irradiation equipment,SureBeam Corporation, filed for bankruptcy inJanuary. During 2002, the American companyhad invested in new facilities, anticipating achange in US law to allow irradiation of readyto-eatfoods such as hot dogs anddelicatessen meats. Heavy borrowing andupbeat press releases from SureBeam didlittle to assuage investors, and the companyhas been sued by several shareholders. Newsof SureBeam’s imminent bankruptcy has beenhailed as a success by US anti-irradiationhealth campaigners.■ For information about food irradiation, see:www.foodcomm.org.uk/food_irradiation.htmChemical giant found guilty of causing birth defectsParents who blamed a pesticide for their babybeing born without eyes have won a ten-yearlegal battle and $7m (£3.9m) compensation. Itis the first time a chemical company has beenfound guilty of causing birth defects.In December, the Supreme Court in Floridaruled that the fungicide Benlate, made by theUS chemical giant DuPont, was responsiblefor causing the birth defect.American judges concluded that the baby’scondition was caused when his mother,Donna, was sprayed with Benlate when shewas seven weeks pregnant as she walkedpast a fruit farm in Florida. Benlate was usedfor years on farms and in gardens in Britain tocontrol fungal infections until DuPont took itoff the UK and international markets two yearsago because of mounting litigation costs (anestimated $1.3 billion to date).Thirty British families who claim that theirown children were born with birth defectscaused by Benlate are now preparing to bringfurther legal cases.As early as 1972, the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency, advised DuPont to put awarning on Benlate that it could ‘cause birthdefects ... and exposure during pregnancyshould be avoided’. DuPont argued that thisinformation was misleading and unnecessary,and refused to print the warning.■ Source: The ObserverFood Magazine 64 5 Jan/Mar 2004
Page 1 and 2: The Food Magazine is virtually fat
Page 3: ..continued from page 1newsSuccess!
Page 7 and 8: GMNew GM labelsexclude meat and mil
Page 9 and 10: claimsDubious science -but who care
Page 11 and 12: INQUIRYCause obesity? ‘Not us’f
Page 13 and 14: INQUIRY‘innocent’According to t
Page 15 and 16: food taxesFight fat the fiscal way!
Page 17 and 18: environmentdisasterEmissions genera
Page 19 and 20: scienceWhat the doctor readsThe lat
Page 21 and 22: sugarSweets in a bottleExactly how
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