Skip to Content

Take Action: A Surprise in Your Cereal Box

 

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So how come so many kids’ cereals are unhealthy?

You might remember the Cereal FACTS report released earlier this summer by our friends at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, which found that the cereals most marketed to kids also are the ones that serve up the most sugar.

The thing is, most of those companies also have much healthier cereals in their product lines — and we should encourage them to promote those to kids instead!

In fact, cereals marketed to kids are far less healthy than those marketed to adults. They have 56 percent more sugar, half as much fiber and 50 percent more sodium!

Even though most popular kids’ cereals are still poor in nutritional quality, companies aren’t boxed in. They also make healthy cereals that they could market to children, but choose not to.

Encourage companies like General Mills, Kellogg, and Post to promote healthier options to kids—like regular Cheerios, Unfrosted Mini-Wheats, or Shredded Wheat—instead of Trix, Frosted Flakes, Pebbles or other products that are loaded with sugar.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Ask cereal companies to make it a healthy one, too.