Tell your MP: Stand up for healthy baby food

Every baby and toddler deserves the best, healthiest start in life. But our supermarket baby food aisles are full of highly processed commercial products that are worryingly low in nutrition but high in sugars, often exceeding NHS recommendations for infants.

The soft textures and overly sweet flavours of many of these products don’t support a healthy transition to family food, with growing concern about also encouraging unhealthy snacking habits from an early age.

The shocking truth is that there are no current regulations that limit the total amount of sugars in baby foods, and current standards are now out of date. They are exempt from advertising and promotional restrictions for products high in fat, salt and/or sugar, but are widely promoted and marketed. Age labels from 4 months+ contravene NHS guidance, and other health and child development claims or use of fruit and vegetable imagery mislead and confuse parents about how healthy and age appropriate they really are.

The government has been looking at strengthening guidance for the commercial baby food industry, but only as a voluntary, not a mandatory, measure. That’s not good enough for our babies and toddlers.

Email your MP today and ask them to write to government health ministers and demand better regulation of the commercial baby food sector.

Please take 3 minutes to e-mail your MP – we have the template already written for you.