Kids' new study finds that high sugar cereals are heavily marketed to kids!

Sad to say that the obesity conference reported last week that young kids are being aggressively marketed to by the highest sugar cereals. The study was done by the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Here are some of the reports highlights:

• The average preschool child sees 642 cereal ads per year on television, and almost all of these are for cereals with the worst nutrition rankings.

• On the Internet, cereal companies make heavy use of marketing by sponsoring cereal websites and "advergames".

• For example, millsberry.com, the website sponsored by General Mills, averages over three quarters of a million unique young visitors a month, who on average stay on the site for 24 minutes per visit.

• The most frequent in-store advertiser was Kellogg, averaging 33.3 promotions per store and 9.5 special displays of its child and family brands over the 4-week period covered by the study.

• General Mills markets to children more than any other cereal company and makes 6 of the 10 least healthy cereals advertised to children, including Reese's Puffs, which is 41 per cent sugar and attracted the worst nutrition score.

• Cereals marketed directly to children have 85 per cent more sugar, 65 per cent less fiber, and 60 per cent more sodium than cereals marketed to adults for adult consumption.

• 42 per cent of cereals targeted at children contain artificial food dyes compared with 26 per cent of family cereals and 5 per cent of adult cereals.

• Only 8 per cent of the cereals targeted directly to children are inside the sugar limits that would allow them to qualify for inclusion in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program.

• Not one of the cereals targeted directly to children in the US meets the nutrition standard required to advertise to children in the United Kingdom.

• All cereals marketed directly to children meet the industry's own nutrition standard for "better-for-you" foods. These include: Cocoa Puffs (44 per cent sugar), Cap'n Crunch (44 per cent sugar), Froot Loops (41 per cent sugar), Lucky Charms (41 per cent sugar) and Cinnamon Toast Crunch (32 per cent sugar).

According to this study, YES. "Research shows that children will eat the healthier cereals."

So how do you find them? Yes, you may have guessed, read the labels and compare. It is a balance between taste and nutrition.

Here are some key things to look at when trying to find a healthy cereal for your child.

• Look for cereals that are lower in sugar. (8 or less grams of sugar)
• Look for cereals that say "no artificial dyes or artificial sugar"
• Look for cereals that have more fiber, 4 gms or more per serving
• Look for cereals that are lower in sodium