Stiftung Warentest: What is really in children's desserts?

Victoria Becker completed a Bachelor of Arts in “Online Editing” at the TH Köln and wrote a practical thesis at the Goethe-Institut Lithuania. She is currently studying media and communication sciences as a master at the University of Lund, Sweden, and writes for, among other things.

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Children love sweet desserts: However, products that are colorful, too greasy or contain a lot of sugar that are specially marketed to the youngsters have been criticized for a long time. But what's in it and what should you pay attention to when choosing? Stiftung Warentest examined 25 products.

The "sweet tooth" is innate. Therefore, parents would like to spoil their offspring with a dessert from time to time. However, special children's desserts often contain too much sugar, fat and calories, as the Stiftung Warentest (10/2020 edition) announced. For this reason, they should not be over served as this can affect the development of health problems such as obesity or tooth decay.

Too cute, too fat? The differences are huge

Stiftung Warentest examined a total of 25 child nutrition products, including puddings, yogurts and cream cheese preparations. None of the products was rated "very good". The differences between the products are sometimes large; the worst-rated dessert, for example, had six times as many calories, four times as much sugar and 14 times as much fat compared to the top-rated dessert. This is what the foundation reported in the October issue of the magazine "test" (issue 10/2020).

The test results at a glance:

• "good": 12 products
• "Satisfactory": 8 products
• "Sufficient": 4 products
• "Poor": 1 product

In terms of nutritional quality, the "Fruchtzwerge" products in the variants "less sweet", "organic" and "classic" were right at the front in the test, followed by "Monsterbacke" from Ehrmann and the "Fruchtjuniors" brands from Aldi Süd and Aldi north.

Pay attention to the list of ingredients when shopping

Consumer advocates see the special foods for children, which should often catch the eye with brightly colored and funny shapes, fundamentally critical. They do not contribute to a balanced diet for the little ones, judges, for example, the Brandenburg Consumer Center (VZB).

She advises parents to read the list of ingredients and nutritional values ​​when shopping. This helps to identify "sugar bombs" or critical additives that can be harmful. Too much sugar can damage teeth, and too much citric acid can damage tooth enamel, for example.

During a market check, the VZB also found critical additives in food for children: The red azo dye E122, for example, is suspected of triggering allergies and impairing the activity and attention of children. Although there are some warnings on the packaging, these are easy to overlook. The consumer advocates also criticize the fact that parents often buy the smallest portions with these products with a lot of packaging waste.

Still water, which is sold as baby water, is also unnecessary and too expensive. The tap water in Germany is of the best quality and, according to calculations by the Brandenburg consumer center, is around 250 times cheaper. It can already be offered to young children when boiled. And from their first year of life, children could also be nourished healthy and balanced with normal foods.

Prepare healthy food yourself

The product testers emphasize that healthy food is important with their recommendations of healthy alternatives that parents can quickly make themselves: Rice pudding, quark or yoghurt without added sugar offer a good basis that can be refined with nuts, fruit or fruits. Often this is not only a cheaper way to conjure up a great dessert, but also a chance to involve the children. In this way, they can learn what a healthy diet can look like and put together their own desserts with healthy toppings of their choice.

Hunger for sugar is also a matter of getting used to. Even children will soon taste just as good desserts with little sugar as the super-sweet finished products did before. This is especially important if the little ones tend to gain weight. Because if you are too fat in childhood, you usually stay that way for a lifetime.

Serious problem: More and more children are too fat

And that affects more and more children and adolescents: According to the Robert Koch Institute, 15 percent of them are already too fat - and the trend is rising. Obesity not only has physical consequences such as early type 2 diabetes and diseased blood vessels, the extra pounds are also an emotional burden: being overweight gnaws at one's self-confidence. It gets really bad when children are teased and marginalized about it.

(dpa / vb)

Tags:  sleep dental care digital health