An aisle of brightly coloured cereal options in the supermarket promises breakfast fun for kids. But a new Canadian study suggests that the fun packaging hides five important considerations — some of which are more obvious than others. Here's what parents should know about their kids' cereal!

What you'll find in this article:

  • Information on a new Canadian study about kids' cereals
  • Information about nutritional content, sugar and ultra-processed food
  • How to navigate marketing and gimmicks when it comes to shopping for cereal
  • Info about new Health Canada initiatives and strategies

With busy school mornings stacked against you, it might be tempting to stock up on your child’s favourite ready-to-eat cereal.But a new Canadian study suggests that the fun packaging hides five important considerations — some of which are more obvious than others.

The study examined 103 unique children’s cereals sold at major retailers for their marketing techniques, nutritional content and sugar and using two nutrition criteria (one developed by Health Canada, the other developed by industry, designed to support responsible food advertising to children. Here is what you need to know.

Sugar is (still) a concern

The problem with high sugar consumption and its link to unhealthy diets and poor health has been recognized for more than a decade, while recent studies raise further concerns about the consequences of ultra-processed foods on children’s health. Even though current food trends in increasingly focus on nutrition and less processed food, the study found that children’s cereal averaged 30 percent of calories coming from sugar, with one cereal containing 58.2 percent of calories from sugar per serving! Remarkably, 96 percent of the cereals in the study exceeded appropriate sugar thresholds set by Health Canada.

Marketing is more than cartoons

For the first time ever, Canada’s new Food Guide advises Canadians to be aware of food marketing. On food packaging, these marketing techniques can be obvious, like cartoon characters, or less recognizable as marketing, such as nutrition-related claims. In the study, 83 percent of the children’s cereals featured cartoons, including generic cartoons, brand mascots (like Lucky the Leprechaun) or cartoons licensed from children’s entertainment media (such as Minecraft). One of every two boxes used “movement,” like flying cereal or cereal exploding out of a bowl as a fun and persuasive technique to capture children’s attention. Many of the cereals were explicitly linked to unhealthy treats, such as donuts, brownies, strawberry milkshakes, hot cocoa, cookies, cinnamon buns, chocolate bars “vanilla crème filling,” or “monster marshmallows.”

These child-friendly appeals were paired with adult-directed health and nutrition-related claims. Roughly nine out of every 10 cereal boxes had them (88.4 percent), communicating “health” to parents. This is a dramatic jump from the 56.4 percent found on cereals a decade ago, and reveals the ways manufacturers strive to convince parents that fun food can be healthy too. Popular claims included “whole grain” (on 45.6 percent of products) and “source of fibre” (16.5 percent), or tapped into consumer concerns around the “naturalness” of the product, such as being naturally flavoured (27.2 percent) or “made with real …” honey, peanut butter, cinnamon, etc. (11.7 percent). The claims should not be read in isolation. A product should be considered as a whole, with special attention paid to its sugar content.

“Healthier for you” is not necessarily good for you

These nutrition claims — and even health-related marketing claims like the nebulous “made with goodness” —provide a wholesome aura for these cereals. Yet, as studies have shown, child-targeted food products with “health halos” (such as gluten-free or organic) are often high in sugar and especially fat and/or sodium. It’s a good reminder that parents need to guard against conflating “better for you” with “good for you.” Taking the time to read the label and compare and contrast brands will certainly help guide you.

Packaging is a powerful advertising tool for kids

Countless gimmicky cereals are desirable solely because of their packaging; it is the packaging that makes the product and acts as a powerful means of advertising to children. In a world preoccupied with digital media, it's easy to overlook the ways that more traditional media, such as packaging, seize our attention — and that of our children — persuading us to buy.

This provides a powerful opportunity to teach kids critical media literacy skills when it comes to food packaging. You can start by pulling out the ways that different packaging techniques, like cartoons, movement and nutrition claims, draw attention away from more important questions of what is actually in the box. Given that packaging is a top source of unhealthy marketing exposure for kids, the study also examined the cereals as advertisements. It used the criteria proposed, but not enacted, by Health Canada as part of its Healthy Eating Strategy as well as the criteria implemented by industry to guide responsible advertising of food and beverage products to children. Both criteria outline thresholds for sugar, sodium and saturated fat (with additional nutrient criteria specific to cereals in the industry Code). Foods must fall under these thresholds to be advertised to children.

Strikingly, not one of the cereals explicitly packaged to appeal to children would be allowed to be advertised to them using Health Canada’s proposed criteria; however, 69 percent of the same cereals would be permitted to be advertised using the industry code. Similarly, 96 percent of cereals would be classified as high in sugar using the government criteria compared to the 24 percent using industry criteria.

Although Canada’s government-led criteria were proposed, again, not enacted, the findings draw attention to the remarkable differences in terms of what is considered “appropriate” to advertise to children, depending on who is asked: government versus industry.

Dr. Charlene Elliott is a professor and Research Excellence Chair at the University of Calgary, with a program of research focused on food marketing, policy and children’s health. She has worked with Health Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Ottawa Public Health and the Centre for Science in the Public Interest. She is passionate about advancing children’s health and has helped develop a program for children on critical media literacy skills when it comes to food marketing that reaches thousands of Canadian children in schools annually.