25 Feb 2022 --- Front-of-package claims and marketing messages used to promote fruit-flavored drinks and toddler milk with added sugars contribute to parents’ misperceptions about product nutrition and benefits for their young children. This is according to new research by the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health in the US. The most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that children younger than age 2 consume no added sugars.The study’s findings, published in Maternal & Child Nutrition, also revealed that many parents are confused about different product categories, such as sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, 100% juice, toddler milk, and infant formulas. “Industry can and should do more,” says Fleming-Milici. “Increasing transparency about product ingredients and eliminating misleading marketing of toddler milk and fruit-flavored drinks can go a long way in supporting parents’ best efforts to provide healthy drinks to their children.”Companies often cross-brand their less healthy products with healthier products and place these similar-looking drinks side-by-side on shelves at retailers, contributing to this confusion.“Marketing tactics commonly used to promote fruit-flavored drinks and toddler milk appear to mislead, mask and misrepresent true ingredients,” says Frances Fleming-Milici, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center and lead author of the study. “Parents were surprised, and many were angry when they learned of the ingredients in these drinks and that health-related claims on the packages are not supported by scientific research,” he adds.
