Researchers find that 60% of baby and toddler foods sold in the US do not meet desired nutritional standards

A team of public health specialists from the George Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales in Australia has found that about 60% of ready-to-eat baby and toddler foods sold in the US do not meet international nutritional standards.

In their paperpublished in the magazine Nutrientsthe group describes how they analyzed nutrition data for 651 infant and toddler food products sold at the eight largest U.S. supermarket chains in the United States and what they discovered when they compared the data to internationally recognized dietary guidelines.

The researchers’ work on this new effort began when they noticed that despite parental concerns about the increasing popularity and health effects of commercial foods marketed to infants and toddlers, there are currently no dietary guidelines in the United States. government exist. That made them think about the nutritional value of such foods.

To find out more, they traveled to the US and purchased 669 toddler and baby food items from eight of the most popular grocery chains in Raleigh, North Carolina. Then, using FoodSwitch, they scanned the barcodes on each food product to get a list of the materials and nutrition facts for each of the products examined.

They followed this up by comparing the nutritional value a baby or toddler would gain from consuming the products against the nutritional standards set by the World Health Organization in 2022.

When reviewing the data, the research team found that approximately 60% of the food products examined did not meet dietary guidelines. More specifically, they found that 70% of them did not meet protein guidelines and 44% of them had more sugar than recommended. Also, about 25% did not meet their calorie needs.

Compounding the problem are food pouches: soft packets containing pureed food with a nipple at the top that allow a baby or toddler to feed themselves by squeezing the packet, rather than being spoon-fed. The research team found that only 7% of products tested met sugar recommendations.

The research team also found widespread misinformation about packaging, with 99.4% of products tested having at least one false claim, and some as many as eleven.

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