Almost half of the calories consumed by young children in the UK come from ultra-processed foods, with the number rising to 59 per cent among 7-year-olds, according to recent research.
“Eating habits in the early years are important because they help set habits that may continue from childhood into adulthood,” said senior author Professor Clare Llewellyn, from the Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare at University College London (UCL). expression.
Eating more ultra-processed foods has been linked to a higher risk of developing diet-related diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Vicky Sibson, director of the First Steps Nutrition Trust (FSNT), said: “This is worrying as babies and young children who gain weight too quickly are more likely to carry excess weight into adolescence and adulthood.” Newsweek.
But Llewellyn said news week: “We know very little about the consumption of these foods among very young children. It is important to understand consumption patterns in this age group as a first step before starting epidemiological studies.” [observations about public health] Research linking individual differences in young children’s intake to health outcomes.”
A group of scientists, led by researchers at UCL, analyzed data from 2,591 children born in the UK between 2007 and 2008.
These were children participating in the Gemini twin cohort study, whose parents completed three-day food diaries when the children were 21 months and 7 years old.
The scientists analyzed these logs using the NOVA classification, which is the standard used to define ultraprocessed foods into one of four categories: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, such as eggs, dairy, vegetables and fruit; processed kitchen ingredients such as salt, butter and oil; processed foods such as canned fish, homemade bread and cheese; and ultra-processed foods (UPF), such as chips, store-bought cookies, sliced bread, and breakfast cereals.
“A simple way to look at it is that UPFs are packaged foods, often produced in factories, that consist of a long list of ingredients, including ingredients you typically won’t find in your kitchen cupboard,” Sibson said.
FSNT produced a report that found that in 2023, children aged 2 to 5 in the United Kingdom received an average of 61 percent of their caloric intake from UPF, but Sibson said that number had likely increased since the study’s data was collected 10 years ago.
“The situation is worse in the UK than in other countries,” Sibson said. “Statistics show that 61 per cent of the total average energy intake of children aged 2 to 5 comes from UPF in the UK, compared to 58 per cent in the US, 47 per cent in Australia and just 18 per cent in Colombia. “
UCL scientists divided the children in their study into five groups depending on how much UPF they ate.
They found that toddlers in the group consuming the lowest amount of UPF got 28 percent of their dietary calories from UPF, and toddlers at the other extreme ate an average diet of 69 percent UPF.
Most of the UPF consumed by young children generally came from sources believed to be healthier, such as breakfast cereals and flavored yogurts.
“They provide valuable nutrients like fiber and calcium, but many also contain a lot of sugar and salt,” Llewellyn said. news week. “More research is needed to understand what makes UPFs harmful; that is, is it the nutritional profile of foods, in which case some UPFs are good, or is it the processing itself or the additives?”
Recent research has shown that “healthier” sources of UPF may not have the same harmful effects as more unhealthy forms of UPF, such as store-bought cookies.
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But UCL researchers found that children who consumed the most UPF when young were 9.4 times more likely to be in the highest UPF consuming group at age 7; At this point, the most common sources of UPF included sweet breakfast cereals, white bread, and desserts. .
Previous research has shown that young children’s diets can predict the foods they will turn to later; For example, eating more vegetables in early childhood seems to encourage eating more vegetables as the child grows.
“Especially in early childhood, ‘real’ minimally processed nutritious food is important because in addition to getting the nutrients they need to grow, develop, and stay healthy, babies and toddlers need to learn to chew, swallow, and develop their muscle and physical capacity to eat.” ” said Sibson.
“They also need to learn the taste of real food and develop healthy preferences, not just for sweet foods and drinks.
“A daily diet of smooth store-bought baby purees, crunchy baby snacks, baby sweets, etc. may go some way towards meeting a child’s nutritional needs – although it may contain a lot of sugar – but this diet will not help him or her with child care.” “It won’t be learning the physical act of eating or preparing them to enjoy a healthy family meal made with real food.”
UCL scientists found that young children in the study consumed too much sugar in all five categories of UPF consumption; This sugar is defined as more than the maximum recommended by the UK government: 5 percent of daily calories.
But in the two groups where toddlers consumed the most UPF, added sugar intake averaged more than 10 percent of daily calories.
“Not all ultra-processed foods are bad for our health, and the foods commonly consumed by young children in our study were foods seen as quite healthy,” said lead author Rana Conway, from UCL’s Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare. expression.
“But some whole-grain cereals and flavored yogurts contain high levels of added sugar and salt, and our study found that young children who consume more ultra-processed foods also consume more of these ingredients.”
Seven-year-olds who consumed more UPF were also more likely to consume high amounts of salt and sugar, and their UPF intake was associated with consuming less fibre.
Parents can improve their children’s nutrition by offering mostly nutritious, unprocessed and minimally processed foods that are mostly made from scratch, Sibson said.
“Children will benefit from eating more unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains, so making that switch is an easier thing for parents to focus on, rather than trying to read and make sense of ingredient labels on processed foods.” open,” Llewellyn said.
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References
Conway, RE, Heuchan, GN, Heggie, L., Rauber, F., Lowry, N., Hallen, H., Llewellyn, CH (2024). Ultra-processed food intake in toddler and middle childhood in the UK: cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives. European Journal of Nutrition. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-024-03496-7
Spill, MK, Johns, K., Callahan, EH, Shapiro, MJ, Wong, YP, Benjamin-Neelon, SE, Birch, L., Black, MM, Cook, JT, Faith, MS, Mennella, JA, and Casavale, KO (2019). Repeated food exposure and food acceptability in infants and young children: A systematic review. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 109978S-989S. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy308