The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University has released the results of a study showing that kids will actually eat low-sugar cereal and that “serving high-sugar cereals may increase children’s total sugar consumption and reduce the overall nutritional quality of breakfast.” Gee, really?
In the study, summer campers between 5 and 12 were given the choice of either three high-sugar cereals or three low-sugar cereals, along with milk, fruit, juice and packets of sugar. The results:
Children reported “liking” or “loving” the cereal they chose whether it was a high-sugar or low-sugar variety. The children who were offered the high-sugar cereals consumed twice the amount of refined sugar, even though the other children added sugar to their low-sugar cereals. In both cases, children consumed similar amounts of milk and total calories; however, children who were served low-sugar cereals consumed a greater proportion of those calories from fresh fruit, whereas the added sugar found in high-sugar cereals comprised the majority of calories in the high-sugar cereal meal.
The line from the report about the study that really got my attention was this:
The dilemma, say the authors, is that because of the prevalent marketing of high-sugar cereals to children, many parents feel they are faced with a choice between purchasing high-sugar cereals or having their children eat no breakfast at all.
Huh? How about trying out this neat, new thing we have called “Parental Authority” and buying the cereal you feel is best for your kids?
[Hat tip: Yale Alumni Magazine blog]
jenna Food w/ Kid Appeal says
perfect timing. i’m meeting with CNS today to review participation data from our plain cheerios breakfast pilot last week. thanks for sharing 🙂
bettina elias siegel says
Jenna — I was thinking of you and your pilot study! Glad you saw the post. – Bettina
Bri says
Wow, I must be doing my kids a disservice by feeding them plain Cheerios. Too bad they like them so much! 🙂
That last bit really shows the insidious effects of marketing on the public consciousness. To think that so many of us are easily led astray by something as ridiculous as cartoon characters on a box… it’s frightening. But it’s good information to have, too, because it shows us all that this matter of “educating” ourselves as parents — and those around us — goes much deeper than a conversation about corn sugar vs. cane sugar or good fats vs. bad fats…
Dana Woldow says
When my sons were little I used to take them to the grocery store with me and let them pick out their own breakfast cereal. I told them they could choose any cereal which did not list “sugar” as one of the first three ingredients. They were thrilled – until they began reading the ingredients lists on all of their preferred choices.
In the end, we always ended up with a box of something that was acceptable both to them and to me, and it was a lot easier than my having to say “no” to endless demands for brightly colored sugary junk.
NotCinderell says
Speaking as a child of the ’70s and ’80s, it’s totally easy to raise a kid not to put sugar on their non-sugary cereal: just don’t offer it, and the kids won’t assume it’s normal. I was raised on Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Life, Corn Flakes, Special K, Wheaties, and similar low-sugar cereals. My kids eat the same types of cereals with gusto, and nobody thinks to ask for sugar. The idea of putting sugar on these cereals is actually distasteful to me, and the first time I saw someone put sugar on Cheerios, I nearly gagged.
The problem lies in something more powerful than marketing, I think. We as parents have an evolutionary desire to make sure our children eat enough to survive, which in previous generations meant overcoming neophobia and giving the kids what they like a lot of the time in order to make sure that they ate. The problem of widespread obesity is unique to this point in history, so the need to retool our thinking to not care whether our kids like the food is a very new one. It’s a cultural anomaly, at least, and I’d argue it’s even a biological one.
bettina elias siegel says
NotCinderell — Same here! As a child in the 70’s, it was a huge treat in my house to get Life, which seemed super-sugary to me compared to our usual cereals (“Hey! Let’s get Mikey!” . . . anyone? anyone?) 🙂 And I agree — as a society we’ve had to turn on a dime from fear of scarcity and hunger to the consequences of inactivity and overabundance. It’s no wonder that we’re in a mess right now. – Bettina