Parents are urged to choose children's breakfast cereals with low levels of sugar.
In the light of an international joint test on breakfast cereals, the Consumer Council is concerned over the results on the sugar content of 15 samples available in the Hong Kong market.
All but one sample were deemed "high" in sugar by established guidelines (UK Food Standards Agency's Front-of-Pack Traffic Light Signpost Labelling - Technical Guidance).
The 14 samples were found to contain from 14.8g to 44g sugar per 100g of cereal. The UK guidelines set the threshold for "high" sugar at 12.5g/100g and above.
The test is a joint study organized by the International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT) to support the Consumers International (CI) call to ban the marketing of unhealthy food and drink to children.
It focused on breakfast cereals targeted for children under 12 years of age.
As the sugar detected in the samples was largely sucrose (which exists naturally in cereals only in trace amount), the high sugar content is believed to have been caused mostly from "free sugars" added by the manufacturers in the production process.
High intake of free sugars threatens the nutrient quality of diets by providing significant energy but without specific nutrients, thus unhealthy weight gain in children.
The one sample with a sugar content deemed acceptable contained 11.3g/100g.
Unfortunately, what less sugar it had was more than made up by its content in salt (sodium). Indeed, it had the highest level of sodium of all samples - 971mg/100g of cereal.
For health reasons, parents should also pay heed to the salt content of children's breakfast cereals.
The sodium content of most of the samples (10) in the test were found to be between 149mg/100g and 571mg/100g.
For fat content, the samples were found to fare well with only low levels in the majority of cases ranging from 0.58g to 7.56g in total fat and 0.17g to 4.21g in saturated fat per 100g cereal respectively. All had lower than 0.1g/100g trans fat.
The ICRT study also compared samples of 13 major products of two major brands drawn from 32 cities in 5 regions - Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, South America and Africa - for their regional average levels in sugar, salt and fat.
It was found that on average, South America ranked highest in total sugars content (38g/100g), followed by North America (37g/100g), Asia Pacific (35g/100g), Europe (33g/100g) and Africa (27g/100g).
In terms of the average content in sodium, North America was top (0.6mg/100g), followed by Asia Pacific and Africa (both 0.5mg/100g), Europe and South America (both 0.4mg/100g).
As for fat content, Europe had the highest average of 3.1g/100g followed by South America (2.8g/100g), Asia Pacific and North America (both 1.8g/100g), and Africa (1.4g/100g).
Consumers can refer to this (October) issue of CHOICE for the scores of the 15 children's breakfast cereal found locally, based on the following weighting: total fat (15%); saturated fat (15%); total sugars (35%); sodium (20%); and dietary fibre (15%). The higher the score, the better.
Meanwhile, based on the findings of this 32-city study, the Consumers International (CI), the global federation of consumer organisations, is to release a report entitled: Cereal Offences: a wake up call on the marketing of unhealthy food to children, later this month.
The report will reveal the "shocking levels" of sugar and salt found in many popular children's cereals, as well as the marketing techniques that companies use to promote them to children and parents.
CI is calling for an international code for restricting the marketing of unhealthy food to children. The organization argues that this is the only effective means of ensuring all children are given adequate protection from the promotion of foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
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