xamining the Nutritional Quality of Breakfast ereals Marketed to Children

c k a t a l BSTRACT here are both public health and food industry initiatives imed at increasing breakfast consumption among chilren, particularly the consumption of ready-to-eat cerels. The purpose of this study was to determine whether here were identifiable differences in nutritional quality etween cereals that are primarily marketed to children nd cereals that are not marketed to children. Of the 161 ereals identified between January and February 2006, 6% were classified as being marketed to children (eg, ackaging contained a licensed character or contained an ctivity directed at children). Multivariate analyses of ariance were used to compare children’s cereals and onchildren’s cereals with respect to their nutritional ontent, focusing on nutrients required to be reported on he Nutrition Facts panel (including energy). Compared o nonchildren’s cereals, children’s cereals were denser in nergy, sugar, and sodium, but were less dense in fiber nd protein. The proportion of children’s and nonchilren’s cereals that did and did not meet national nutriional guidelines for foods served in schools were comared using analysis. The majority of children’s cereals 66%) failed to meet national nutrition standards, particlarly with respect to sugar content. t tests were used to ompare the nutritional quality of children’s cereals with utrient-content claims and health claims to those withut such claims. Although the specific claims were genrally justified by the nutritional content of the product, here were few differences with respect to the overall utrition profile. Overall, there were important differ-