1)  I subscribe to the Children’s Food Campaign newsletter and support their campaigns.

The CFC got a great article in The Independent, which can be seen here.

2) This was an extract from the Children’s Food Campaign January newsletter: “Ever thought of avoiding Coco Pops after school?”

“A new advertising campaign from Kelloggs, suggesting to children “ever thought of Coco Pops after school?” has been eliciting outrage from parents on forums such as Netmums and Twitter. We think it’s shocking that Kelloggs, who are partners of the Government’s Change4Life health campaign, are encouraging children to eat more sugary cereals (Coco Pops are 35% sugar) when one of the key messages of the Change4Life campaign is “sugar swaps”, encouraging families to swap snacks with added sugar for low sugar or sugar-free alternatives. If you’d like to complain, you can email Kelloggs at corporateresponsibility@kellogg.com. You might also like to copy the Department of Health into your email to make them aware of your concerns: dhmail@dh.gsi.gov.uk .”

3) So, of course, I emailed Kelloggs Corporate responsibility and the Department of Health as follows:

Dear Department of Health and Kellogg’s (30/1/2010)
I am writing to complain about the advert encouraging children to eat Coca Pops after school. It is bad enough that our young people start the day with a bowl of sugary cereal (coca pops being 34% sugar). It is even worse to think that children are being encouraged to have another bowl after school. We are fighting an obesity epidemic and any sugar (empty calories) either displaces other nutritional food, which adversely impacts health, or it is eaten on top of other nutritional needs, which adversely impacts weight. There is no room for sugar in a healthy diet – let alone this amount being pushed on parents and children alike as a fun thing to do with cartoon animation etc.
That Kellogg’s does this is not a surprise – it’s a private company looking to maximise brand profitability for shareholders. That the Department of Health has Kellogg’s as a Change for Life ‘partner’ is a disgrace. Department of Health – you lose all credibility as an advisor to UK citizens having such blatant affiliations with the food manufacturers.
I look forward to your response
Kind regards – Zoe Harcombe , Obesity researcher

4) You then get an auto reply from the Department of Health saying they will reply within 20 days,  but I did get a letter back from Kellogg’s on 3/2/2010 – fair do’s – pretty speedy. Here is the response (I’ve put in my comments along side each ‘defence’):

Dear Zoe

Re: COMPLAINT TO KELLOGG’s ABOUT COCO POPS ADVERTISING

I wanted to contact you following your recent email to Kellogg’s about us promoting our Coco Pops cereal as an after school snack.

The reason for recommending Kellogg’s Coco Pops with milk as an after-school snack is no different from recommending it for breakfast – it’s a nutritionally sound product that is suitable as part of a healthy balanced diet.

The fact is Kellogg’s Coco Pops is a low fat, low saturated fat food, containing just 175 calories per serving with semi-skimmed milk.  It provides 25% of the RDA (recommended daily allowance) for six B vitamins and 17% of the RDA for iron and calcium, as well as encouraging the consumption of milk which is normally eaten with our products.  In fact, 40% of milk consumed in Britain is with cereals. , and breakfast cereals are the leading source of iron in the diet of UK children . (Zoe comment: Coco Pops are low fat because they are a cereal and cereals are predominantly carbohydrate! Coco Pops have vitamins because they are ‘fortified ‘ because they would be nutritionally lacking if they weren’t and even more vitamins are added when people drink milk  – so give your child a glass of milk when they get home).

When it comes to sugar, one portion of Kellogg’s Coco Pops has just 10.5g – approximately two teaspoons.  To put this into context: a portion of fruit yoghurt contains 20g of sugar and toast and jam has 13g . (Zoe comment: sugary yoghurts and jam are also full of sugar  – this doesn’t make our product good, but we’ll compare it to other bad stuff to try to make it look good).

Breakfast cereals provide only 5% of the adult daily intake of added sugars in the diet – compared to 37% from drinks, 32% from sugar, preserves and confectionary and 14% from other cereal products such as cakes .  Breakfast cereals contribute 6% of the average daily intake of sugar in children yet up to 30% of some micronutrients such a B vitamins and iron. (Zoe comment: so let’s double the intake of sugar from cereals, by getting kids to eat them after school, as well as before school, as cereal manufacturers are missing out on their share of the ‘junk’ market. Check spelling of confectionEry also).

Sugar adds to the enjoyment of food with no detrimental effect to health – there is no scientific evidence showing a link between sugar and obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hyperactivity or cancer. (Zoe comment: I love this one! I didn’t actually suggest that sugar is behind the major killer diseases of the modern day, but, now you mention it… See Warburg, see Yudkin… what was my quote again? “If we have been eating food as nature intended for 24 hours then agriculture, which gave us large scale access to carbohydrates, started 4 minutes ago and our consumption of sugar has increased 20 fold in the past 5 seconds. I wonder which substance is more likely to be responsible for obesity, diabetes, or indeed any modern disease…”)

What I hope we can agree on is there’s an established link between excess calorie consumption and weight gain.  So – given the obesity challenge we all face – it seems prudent to compare the amount of calories in Kellogg’s Coco Pops and milk to many typical post school snacks. A serving of Kellogg’s Coco Pops with milk contains around 10% of a child’s calorie GDA, a suitable amount for a snack. A typical milk chocolate bar is 255 calories; a 4 finger chocolate and wafer bar is 213 calories and a bag of chewy fruit flavoured sweets is 222 calories. Kellogg’s Coco Pops with milk have noticeably fewer calories and less sugar then most of these options and provide many positive nutrients the other snacks do not. (Zoe comment: No. We can’t agree on this. I actually don’t care about calories – they are just fuel. I care about empty calories – sugar – which deliver fuel with no nutrition. This is what an obese society cannot afford to consume).

As a mum of two I understand the need for kids to have a quick snack when they got home hungry from school.  But, we don’t see any evidence that encouraging Kellogg’s Coco Pops as an after school snack prevents children from snacking on fruit. (Zoe comment: Are they eating both?! Not much room left for a good dinner eh?)

Independent research shows 90% of mums  give their children a snack after school, therefore we are not encouraging an eating occasion that would not normally happen.  The top six foods eaten being crisps, fruit, sweets, yoghurt, chocolate and biscuits.  Those who said that they would choose Kellogg’s Coco Pops with milk as an alternative said it would replace (in descending order) crisps, chocolate, sweets and biscuits – not fruit or yoghurt. (Zoe comment: So parents who give their kids junk now have another option. The parents that give fruit will still do so. This is the argument used by cigarette manufacturers – we don’t increase the size of the market – we just encourage people to swap brands).

Therefore, having Kellogg’s Coco Pops with milk as an after school snack does not discourage the selection of fresh fruit, and also encourages the consumption of milk and provides essential micronutrients – an accepted dietary recommendation.

It’s for these reasons we don’t see promoting Coco Pops as an after school snack as being counter to our involvement with Change4Life. (Zoe comment: see what else Kellogg’s sponsor below…)

I’d like to assure you that at Kellogg’s we ensure all of our marketing and advertising is rigorously reviewed so that it complies with the relevant CAP broadcast and non-broadcast advertising codes.  (Zoe comment: None of this matters much because we comply with the advertising standards code, so we can do what we want!) I’d also like to advise you the current Coco Pops outdoor advertising campaign comes to its natural end this Friday.

I appreciate dialogue via a letter isn’t always the most productive.  So, I or a member of my team of nutritionists would be more than happy to meet with you and discuss your concerns in person.

Yours sincerely

(Zoe: I’ve left out the name and contact numbers for privacy, but after the job title is “State Registered Dietitian”) (Zoe comment: why am I not surprised?! The Kellogg’s Senior Manager for nutrition is a dietitian. The head of the Sugar Bureau is a dietitian. The British Dietetic Association (BDA) is “delighted” (their word) to be ‘in bed with’ the sugar and flour organisations. Kellogg’s are the sponsors of the British Dietetic Association’s annual conference on obesity. The American Dietetic Association is sponsored by Mars, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, General Mills and Coco-Cola. The BDA won’t tell me their sponsors – can’t think why. And then the dietitian primary slogan is “Trust a dietitian to know about nutrition”. Not when every dietitian I have met defends sugar I won’t!)

Finally – check out the Children’s Food Campaign competition for a new Coco Pops slogan - great fun! x

A study done by Carnegie Weight Management (fat camp for kids, basically) found that an average Christmas dinner can contain 956 calories and48g of fat. Who cares?! Turkey, carrots, sprouts, parsnips, even roast potatoes and a bit of stuffing are not going to do anyone any harm. What will do the harm is the sugary cereal for breakfast on Christmas morning, any mince pies and Christmas cake in the afternoon and the mountains of selection boxes, sweets, chocolates and total sugar junk that the children get and eat on Christmas day and the days afterwards.

Real food at mealtimes does not make us fat. It’s the sugar and flour we eat at other times that does this.

A “Which” Consumer survey found that a child’s lunchbox could contain as much sugar as 10 doughnuts. A packed lunch with 5 items including cheese, biscuits and fruit juice, contained 60g of sugar. This equates to 12 teaspoons making the lunch as sugary as 10 McDonald’s Sugar Donuts or nearly a pint of coca-cola.

One of the worst products was the Robinson’s Fruit Shoot Orange Juice with 23g of sugar per 200ml bottle.

The various offending companies had spokespeople put up a defence:

Robinsons said it makes a low sugar version and the labels contain clear information so that parents can make an informed choice.

Nestle said its Munch Bunch (low in fruit and 2 teaspoons of sugar in a small pot) was high in sugar and protein and its packaging was clearly labelled.

Kellog’s said its Frosties cereal bars are a low-fat alternative to chocolate.

Isn’t there legislation for crimes against children? Can there be any defence for putting company profits before the health of our children?

Regular readers of this blog will know I have little regard for parents who don’t give their children the most important thing they can give them – health. Being a great parent is not about being able to provide branded trainers, it’s about inspiring your offspring to be the best people they can be. They can’t even start to achieve in this increasingly demanding world, without basic health.

To send a child off to school without a decent breakfast inside them is negligent. On the other hand, this survey was commissioned by Kelloggs – no doubt looking to see if they can get the 30% of girls and 20% of boys, who don’t have breakfast at home, to have a bowl of sugary cereal instead. This is just as bad as sending the child out for the day with an empty stomach.

Great breakfasts for children are bacon and eggs, omelettes, whole meal toast and marmite (if they love it), fruit, natural yoghurt, and/or sugar free cereals like porridge/shredded wheat (there aren’t many). Frosties, Cornflakes and other sugary cereals are not the best start to the day.

The smoking bit came from the fact that many parents are giving children money to get breakfast on the way to school and some kids are getting cigarettes instead. If your child comes home smelling of ciggies, no more breakfast money!

The camp puts these growing teenagers on 1,200 calories a day (almost certainly at least 800 calories below their need) AND they have to do at least 10,000 steps a day and all the pictures in the article were of the teenagers looking exhausted and fed up in the gym. This typical low calorie/low fat diet is by definition high carb (food is either carb/protein or fat/protein – so a low fat diet always has a higher proportion of carbs) and it is carbs that are responsible for overweight and obesity and not calories. Calories are just fuel for the body! When are we going to have the 180′ transformation in thinking that we need to even halt the rise in obesity – let alone to reverse it?!

Kate and Grace, two of the guinea pigs, admit “we love carbs” – so – what does fat camp do? cut fat out of the diet and let them eat carbs to the limit of their calorie allowance! This will only serve to feed their cravings for carbs and ensure that they want carbs all day long. This is virtually guaranteed to turn them into food addicts before they cease to be teenagers.

Parents are paying £3,500 for a 4 week stay for each child (Kate and Grace are twins, so pity their parents!). They would be better off paying for the children to train in nutrition over the summer and to understand the impact of carbs on insulin and body weight. Grace and Kate lost 2lb and 3lb respectively at their first weigh in. They could have lost 3-4 times that on The Harcombe Diet without reducing their calorie intake and thereby possibly stunting their teenage growth forever. Tragic.

The evidence that an overweight child becomes an overweight adult is overwhelming. The added pressures for children who are overweight, or obese, are also important to take into consideration. Children are regularly teased, even bullied, about their weight and parents who don’t see ‘puppy fat’ for what it really is are not doing their children any favours.

The best way to get children back to a normal weight (better still – to not let them get overweight in the first place) is to only have real food in the house. No biscuits, cakes, sweets, crisps etc – just don’t have them in the house. No one else in the house needs these things either. Have plenty of meat, fish, eggs, dairy, fruit, veg and salad at meals (all mixed up in things like ‘spag-bol’ – whatever it takes) and try to fill them up on real food.

If your children are pre-solid food age now, don’t even start them on sugary foods or cereals. Watch out for the baby food also – some food manufacturers are quite simply irresponsible – The Children’s Food campaign recently exposed that Farley’s Rusks contained more sugar per gram than McVities Chocolate Digestives. What better way than to give humans an unnaturally sweet tooth than when they are babies! This is a disgusting way to treat the health of our next generation.

It is difficult to get children off sweet and processed food, so try to avoid starting in the first place.