Part of a Balanced Breakfast

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Nov 01, 2009 at 22:03:52 PM PST

And while you can read the findings below, there is one thing I want to point out up here. Remember how that Smart Choices labeling program was made fun of for calling Froot Loops a "Smart Choice"? Well, as you'll see below, Froot Loops fell into the LOWEST category of nutritional rankings by this study. Lower than Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Puff Combos, and Cookie Crunch. In other words, they would have been hard pressed to pick a less healthy cereal if they TRIED.

Methodology

First, evaluate nutrition of cereals:

We first evaluate the nutrient content of 277 RTE [ready to eat] cereals offered by 13 companies in the United States and compare the quality of child, family and adult brands. To conduct this evaluation, we utilize an overall Nutrition Profiling Index (NPI) score based on the nutrient profiling system used in the United Kingdom to identify healthy foods that can be  advertised to children on television.

Second, evaluate marketing:

To quantify cereal company marketing practices, we evaluated television advertising, marketing on the internet (including cereal company websites and advertising on other websites), and in-store marketing (including shelf space allocation, point-of-sale programs, and product packaging).

In spite of their pledges to reduce unhealthy marketing to children, the large cereal companies continue to target children with their least healthy products. Child cereals contain 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber and 60% more sodium when compared to adult cereals. In fact, not one cereal that is marketed directly to children in the United States would be allowed to advertise to children on television in the United Kingdom. Only one, Cascadian Farm Clifford Crunch, would be eligible to be included in cereals offered through the USDA Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. In addition, 42% contain potentially harmful artificial food dyes.

They go on:

All companies do have more nutritious cereals in their portfolios, but these cereals are marketed only to adults. Even the more nutritious cereals promoted for child consumption (e.g., Kellogg Mini-Wheats, General Mills Kix and Quaker Life) are marketed to parents, not to children. In contrast, the majority of child and family cereals offered by the smaller companies (e.g., Kashi Mighty Bites, Barbara's Bakery Puffins and Annie's Bunnies) have significantly less sugar, more fiber and no food dyes. Clearly, children will eat these more nutritious options.

Category	NPI Score	Sugar Content	Fiber Content	Sodium Content
Child	42	35%	5.1%	553
Family	50	25%	7.1%	509
Adult	58	20%	10.8%	348

The Guilty Parties
It should come as no great surprise that the companies we're talking about here are Kellogg and General Mills. Those two together are responsible for Tony the Tiger, the silly Trix rabbit, and pretty much everything else except for Cap'n Crunch. Quaker owns Cap'n Crunch (their only child brand). I have complaints about what they do to oatmeal, but at least nobody is advertising artificially flavored sugary instant oatmeal using obnoxious cartoon characters.

Although General Mills and Kellogg have pledged that they will not advertise to preschoolers directly, the average 2- to 5-year-old viewed more than 500 television ads for child cereals in 2008, and 89% of them were from General Mills and Kellogg.

The worst offender of all is General Mills, who is responsible for nearly 60% of cereal ads seen by kids. Supposedly the brands most advertised are the "better for you" ones, but the list of those brands (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix) makes me wonder - what counts as "worse for you"? A bowl of pure sugar with some food coloring on it? How do you get less nutritious than Cocoa Puffs? Cookie Crisp, maybe? Rice Krispy Treats? Little Chocolate Donuts?

In fact, the report lays out the criteria for making each of the top companies' "better for you" lists. Here, PepsiCo (Quaker) ranks worst, as their criteria are even more lax than General Mills and Kellogg's laughable criteria. Basically, the cereal should be less than 43% sugar and fortified with vitamins. No mention of fiber in there.

Kellogg and Post may not be as bad as General Mills, but they also aren't blameless. According to the report, only Quaker has discontinued advertising directly to children on television. (Wait a second - I haven't owned a TV in 5 years... does this mean there's no more Cap'n and Crunchberries during Saturday morning cartoons?)

One More Interesting Tidbit

Finally, children's cereal advertisements have little to do with food; cereals are typically represented as toys or play-things, playmates in exciting adventures, and even magical entities. The main purpose of child cereal ads appears to be to associate these poor quality products with positive emotional experiences, including having fun, being cool and winning acceptance by peers.

Report's Recommendations

Based on these findings, current food industry self-regulation does not protect young people from the unhealthy influence of cereal marketing and much stronger action is needed.

I'll file that under "Duh."

NPI Scores
A score over 62 means you can be marketed to the kids in the U.K. Here's how everybody scored:

NPI Score	Kellogg	General Mills	Quaker
Over 62	Mini-Wheats: Unfrosted/bite size Mini-Wheats: Frosted/big bite Mini-Wheats: Frosted/bite size Mini-Wheats: Frosted Blueberry Muffin Mini-Wheats: Frosted Cinnamon Streusel Mini-Wheats: Frosted Strawberry Delight Mini-Wheats: Little Bites/Honey Nut
50-62	Mini-Wheats: Little Bites/Chocolate Rice Krispies Jumbo Multi Grain Hannah Montana
40-49	Frosted Flakes Gold Frosted Flakes/Reduced Sugar Disney High School Musical Eggo: Maple Syrup Mini-Swirlz Rice Krispies (Regular) Froot Loops/Reduced Sugar Frosted Flakes (Regular) Apple Jakes (Regular) Cookie Crunch Cocoa Krispies (Regular) Rice Krispies Strawberries	Honey Nut Cheerios Cocoa Puffs Combos Cookie Crisp (Regular)	Cap'n Crunch
Below 40	Froot Loops Fruity Golden Bars Froot Loops (Regular) Froot Loops Smoothie Froot Loops Starberries Rice Krispies Treats Corn Pops (Regular) Rice Krispies Frosted	Cocoa Puffs (Regular) Trix Cinnamon Toast Crunch (Regular) Berry Lucky Charms Lucky Charms (Regular) Chocolate Lucky Charms Reese's Puffs	Cap'n Crunch Crunch Berries