Parents Are Often Misled By Bogus Nutrition Claims On Children’s Cereals

A study examining parents’ understanding of nutritional claims found on children’s cereal packages found that they were often confused by the claims. The potential for misleading parents was especially high when the claims were placed  on cereal products that contained high levels of “nutrients to limit” such as sugar or sodium, and low levels of “nutrients to encourage” such as fiber and protein. For the study, 306 parents of young children looked at images of the box fronts of cereals of poor nutritional quality. Nutrition-related claims on the boxes included “supports immunity,” “whole grain,” “fiber,” etc. The researchers found that the majority of parents misinterpreted the claims, judging the cereals to be healthy and nutritious.