Junk food makes up one fifth of children’s intake

YOUNGSTERS are still getting a diet high in junk food and low in nutrients despite moves by snack manufacturers to make their products healthier, nutrition experts said last night.

Food firms say they have significantly reduced the amount of salt and fat in savoury snacks like crisps and peanuts, while restricting advertising to children.

But the Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute (INDI) says children are still eating too many savoury snacks and other junk foods like sweets and fizzy drinks.

INDI dietician Margot Brennan said: “Studies show that children are getting 20% of their daily intake (for calories) from poor-nutrition foods that offer little other than calories, fat and sugar but no important nutrients.

“Children have high requirements for growth and need calcium, iron and protein and if 20% of their calories are coming from foods without these nutrients, then they’re missing out on something.”

The Snack Food Council, which represents makers of savoury foods like Tayto, Pringles and KP Nuts, yesterday said average sodium levels in crisps had been cut by 20% since the 1990s.

Sodium levels were 1.27 grammes per 100g of crisps — equivalent to 3.8g of salt — but are now down to 1g of sodium, which represents 2.5g of salt per 100g of the snack.

Despite the reduction crisps are still classified under healthy eating guidelines as a high-salt food because they have more than 1.25g of salt per 100g.

The industry body, though, insists that savoury snacks — which exclude chocolate and fizzy drinks — makes up a low proportion of a child’s daily intake of salt and fat.

Manufacturers have also moved to reduce fat levels in their savoury products with the lower-fat type now accounting for one in every 10 bags of crisps sold.

But Ms Brennan said: “These kinds of foods are only to be enjoyed on an irregular basis and are not part of an overall balanced diet.

“The problem lies not in any one junk food but the cumulative effect: if children have a bag of crisps, then they’ll have a glass of pop as well.

“They’re not just eating one thing, they are eating more than that.”

She said advertising had a huge influence on a child’s choice of diet and wanted to see television ads for junk food banned before 9pm.

Although the savoury snack industry said its campaigns accounted for 1% of all television advertising, Ms Brennan said marketing in other forms such as the internet or posters swayed children too.

She said that parents needed to watch what their children ate and also had to put pressure on schools to ditch junk foods from lunchtime menus.

She said: “Parents are under great pressure with lots of commuting and long hours but we (as a country) need to make healthy eating as easy and accessible as possible.”