Marketers target our insecurities and vulnerabilities, and if ever there was a soft target, it’s parents of small children.
So anything marketed as being beneficial to their physical or mental development is likely to have a good “uptake”, especially if it’s an extension of an already trusted product.
Enter Growing Up formulas, sold as formula number 3 by global formula manufacturers such as Nestlé, Wyeth and Aspen: 1 (starter formula) for babies from birth to six months; 2 (follow-on formula) for babies from six to 12 months, and then 3 (growing-up milk) for toddlers from one to three years.
Of course, breastfeeding is by far the best for babies – exclusively for the first six months and then in addition to solids from then until two years or even beyond.
But for many reasons that’s not an option for millions of mothers around the world, hence infant formula is a massive industry.
Dieticians advise that children can be given cow’s milk from the age of 12 months, so why do so many parents spend so much on Growing Up milks during their child’s toddler years?
A domestic worker told me she spends about R300 a month on Nido “toddler” milk for her two-year-old – four scoops in a glass of boiled, cooled water, twice a day is recommended – because “all the mothers say you must”.
Last week I asked a woman who’d put a large tin of Growing Up milk into her trolley why she chose to buy the product instead of giving her child plain milk. She responded: “Because it has more vitamins and when my daughter doesn’t want to eat, it’s a meal substitute.”
It also contains quite a lot of sugar in various forms: white sugar, honey and glucose syrup.
In her presentation at the recent SA Association for Food Science & Technology (SAAFoST) congress in Cape Town, Johannesburg-based dietician Jane Badham spoke out strongly against Growing Up milks in particular, saying they were both nutritionally unnecessary and very expensive.
“Follow-up formula and Growing-up milk are clearly defined as breastmilk substitutes and, according to the World Health Assembly – the highest health policy setting body in the world – they are not necessary, and all promotion of them is prohibited,” Badham said.
“The declaration of these products as not being necessary is not new but has largely been ignored by manufacturers – not surprisingly, considering this market is predicted to grow to be worth $706-billion (R9.29-trillion) by 2019, with the greatest growth in the low and middle income countries, where optimal breastfeeding is precarious.”
Responding, Nestlé, which manufactures the Nan range and Nido, said it supports the World Health Organisation’s recommendation that the intake of free sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake in both adults and children.
“All our Growing Up Milks (GUMs) meet requirements of local legislation in terms of sugar content, and we are continuously reducing the level of sugar in our Growing Up Milks in line with WHO recommendations.
“Our GUMs can have a valuable role to play, along with family foods and other complementary food products, in fulfilling children’s nutritional needs. They are specifically formulated to provide children above one year of age with key nutrients, such as vitamin D, vitamin A, iron, iodine, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids, which may be lacking in some children’s diet, according to recent studies.
“Hence, GUMs can contribute to healthy child growth and development, notably by reducing the risk of iron deficiency and anaemia.”
But Badham countered that the fortified claims undermined mothers’ belief in the nutritional value of breastmilk and the foods they feed their children.
“Where ‘key nutrients may be lacking in some children’s diet’, the answer is not to tell mothers to give them specially formulated milk products, but to encourage them and support them to continue breastfeeding and to include appropriate complementary foods,” she said.
rBST free claim back
Staying with milk, three years ago, Woolworths was ordered by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to remove its rBST-free claim from its fresh Ayrshire milk products, as there was no way to test for the hormone in milk at the time, and the retailer’s producer commitments and audits were not considered to be sufficient evidence to make the claim.
BST is a naturally occurring protein hormone produced by dairy cows to regulate their milk production. rBST is a synthetic version of BST, often given to cows to increase their milk production.
In response to consumer demand, Woolworths says, none of the Ayrshire dairy cows which supply its milk have been given rBST since 2002.
“We are now also able to accurately test milk for the presence of rBST at an internationally recognised academic institution, so we can verify via structured testing that our milk is rBST free,” said Suzy O’Regan, Woolworths’ dairy product developer.
So from this month, the rBST free claim is back on the bottles.
CONTACT WENDY:
E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za
Twitter: @wendyknowler
No, your toddler doesn’t need special milk
So anything marketed as being beneficial to their physical or mental development is likely to have a good “uptake”, especially if it’s an extension of an already trusted product.
Enter Growing Up formulas, sold as formula number 3 by global formula manufacturers such as Nestlé, Wyeth and Aspen: 1 (starter formula) for babies from birth to six months; 2 (follow-on formula) for babies from six to 12 months, and then 3 (growing-up milk) for toddlers from one to three years.
Of course, breastfeeding is by far the best for babies – exclusively for the first six months and then in addition to solids from then until two years or even beyond.
But for many reasons that’s not an option for millions of mothers around the world, hence infant formula is a massive industry.
Dieticians advise that children can be given cow’s milk from the age of 12 months, so why do so many parents spend so much on Growing Up milks during their child’s toddler years?
A domestic worker told me she spends about R300 a month on Nido “toddler” milk for her two-year-old – four scoops in a glass of boiled, cooled water, twice a day is recommended – because “all the mothers say you must”.
Last week I asked a woman who’d put a large tin of Growing Up milk into her trolley why she chose to buy the product instead of giving her child plain milk. She responded: “Because it has more vitamins and when my daughter doesn’t want to eat, it’s a meal substitute.”
It also contains quite a lot of sugar in various forms: white sugar, honey and glucose syrup.
In her presentation at the recent SA Association for Food Science & Technology (SAAFoST) congress in Cape Town, Johannesburg-based dietician Jane Badham spoke out strongly against Growing Up milks in particular, saying they were both nutritionally unnecessary and very expensive.
“Follow-up formula and Growing-up milk are clearly defined as breastmilk substitutes and, according to the World Health Assembly – the highest health policy setting body in the world – they are not necessary, and all promotion of them is prohibited,” Badham said.
“The declaration of these products as not being necessary is not new but has largely been ignored by manufacturers – not surprisingly, considering this market is predicted to grow to be worth $706-billion (R9.29-trillion) by 2019, with the greatest growth in the low and middle income countries, where optimal breastfeeding is precarious.”
Responding, Nestlé, which manufactures the Nan range and Nido, said it supports the World Health Organisation’s recommendation that the intake of free sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake in both adults and children.
“All our Growing Up Milks (GUMs) meet requirements of local legislation in terms of sugar content, and we are continuously reducing the level of sugar in our Growing Up Milks in line with WHO recommendations.
“Our GUMs can have a valuable role to play, along with family foods and other complementary food products, in fulfilling children’s nutritional needs. They are specifically formulated to provide children above one year of age with key nutrients, such as vitamin D, vitamin A, iron, iodine, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids, which may be lacking in some children’s diet, according to recent studies.
“Hence, GUMs can contribute to healthy child growth and development, notably by reducing the risk of iron deficiency and anaemia.”
But Badham countered that the fortified claims undermined mothers’ belief in the nutritional value of breastmilk and the foods they feed their children.
“Where ‘key nutrients may be lacking in some children’s diet’, the answer is not to tell mothers to give them specially formulated milk products, but to encourage them and support them to continue breastfeeding and to include appropriate complementary foods,” she said.
rBST free claim back
Staying with milk, three years ago, Woolworths was ordered by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to remove its rBST-free claim from its fresh Ayrshire milk products, as there was no way to test for the hormone in milk at the time, and the retailer’s producer commitments and audits were not considered to be sufficient evidence to make the claim.
BST is a naturally occurring protein hormone produced by dairy cows to regulate their milk production. rBST is a synthetic version of BST, often given to cows to increase their milk production.
In response to consumer demand, Woolworths says, none of the Ayrshire dairy cows which supply its milk have been given rBST since 2002.
“We are now also able to accurately test milk for the presence of rBST at an internationally recognised academic institution, so we can verify via structured testing that our milk is rBST free,” said Suzy O’Regan, Woolworths’ dairy product developer.
So from this month, the rBST free claim is back on the bottles.
CONTACT WENDY:
E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za
Twitter: @wendyknowler
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