89 percent of children's food products provide poor nutrition...( Just under 23 per cent of the pro...),Health

• Just under 23 per cent of the products had PNQ because of their high fat content. Yet 37 per cent had some sort of nutritional claim on the package. For example peanut butter mixed with chocolate claimed to be a "source of six essential nutrients" and a pizza product claimed to be a "source of calcium".

• High sodium levels meant that 17 per cent of the products analysed were classified as being of PNQ. Despite this, almost 34 per cent made some sort of nutritional claim on the package. Crackers and pizza products were among the worst offenders.

• A fifth of the products featured a cartoon image engaged in some sort of healthy physical activity on the front and a quarter showed these on the back or side of the box. Activities included skateboarding, basketball and biking.

"Assessing the levels of sugar in the selected food products was a methodological challenge, because milk sugars and fruit sugars occur naturally in foods" says Professor Elliott. "The Nutrition Facts label only displays total sugars and the quantity of added sugars is not always provided by the manufacturer.

"This means that the percentage of foods categorised as poorly nutritious due to high levels of sugar is higher than it would have been if information on naturally occurring sugars had been available."

The problem of accurately separating figures for quantities of natural and added sugars in manufactured products has also been encountered by other researchers and acknowledged as an issue by CSPI, so it is not unique to this study.

"Despite this, the findings still give us cause for concern" says Professor Elliott. "While caregivers are likely to purchase products that they hope their children will like, it clearly can result in a less nutritious diet than they may realise. Having a healthy diet is especially important given the current rates of childhood obesity."

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