UK news:
Baby Feeding Law Group response to the Competition and Markets Authority
BBC Panorama reveals the shocking truth about baby pouches
Highlighting important new research on their poor nutritional quality, this programme on BBC Panorama exposed the growing concerns about commercial baby food pouches.
In our view, the programme could have gone further and called for these useless, wasteful, environmentally harmful products to be taken off the market. Aside from the deceptive labelling and poor nutritional content, the fact that these pouches are sold with a spout inevitably encourages that babies suck them while reclining – rather than sitting up and eating and learning to eat and chew family foods. Like all the Follow-up and “Growing-up’ Formulas, these ‘drinkable’ products undermine the development of good healthy eating of family in children.
CLICK HERE for the programme on BBC
CLICK HERE for Sustain comment
See also First Steps Nutrition and Baby Feeding Law Group
Upcoming webinar: Dr Diane Threapleton, Ali Morpeth, Dr Vicky Sibson and Charlotte Sterling-Reid who all feature in the BBC Panorama programme will be taking part in the Commercial Baby Foods in Crisis webinar on 8 May co-hosted by Sustain and the University of Leeds.
Panorama text: Baby food in plastic pouches has revolutionised the way many parents feed their children. Quick, convenient and in a wide range of flavours, they are marketed as healthy alternatives to homemade food. But as reporter Catrin Nye discovers, some are worryingly low in essential vitamins and minerals, while others contain more sugar than the NHS recommends an infant consumes in an entire day. Six years ago, a report from Public Health England called for a tightening-up of baby food regulation as well as clearer labelling, but successive governments have failed to act. While the companies behind baby food pouches insist they put the well-being of children first, Panorama hears from dieticians, dentists and public health experts who all warn that parents should know the risks of regularly using pouches in place of homemade meals.