12/06/2025
New research out about perceptions of baby food 🍏 🥕 👶
💻Research spotlight: Estimating the Impact on Parents’ Infant Feeding Choices of Increasing Age Guidance and Adding Sugar Warning Labels to Commercial Infant Foods: A Mixed-Methods Study by Rana Conway and colleagues at UCL
Key findings:
When participants were asked to imagine they were buying for a 5 month old baby, similar numbers of participants selected products labelled ‘6 months+’ as they did for ‘4 months+
Participants thought that the age labels on products and their wide availability meant they were recommended, and felt they were misleading
Most participants were aware of guidance to start complementary feeding at around 6 months, less than half followed this guidance with their own babies
Only 15% of participants knew that babies under the age of 1 do not need snacks
Melty textures and utility for self-feeding made interviewees feel that snacks were suitable for young babies, and providing infants under 12 months with multiple daily snacks was the norm
Around 30% fewer participants chose commercial baby food desserts containing sugar warning labels
These findings highlight how parents’ misplaced trust in the baby food industry and unchecked misleading marketing is leading them to choose commercial baby food products which are not age appropriate and which are high in free sugars.
But importantly, it also shows that there are acceptable solutions which could change behaviours for the better, across socio-economic groups:
Ensuring minimum age guidance of 6 months + on commercial baby foods and 12 months + on commercial baby snacks could shift feeding behaviours toward closer alignment with government feeding advice.
Adding front of pack sugar warning labels and removing “contains natural sugar” could support a reduction in sugar intake.
To coincide with the BBC Panorama documentary ‘The Truth on Baby Food Pouches’ which aired on April 28th, we wrote a briefing on commercial baby and toddler foods. It outlines our policy asks of Government, which are in line with the recommendations of this research.
See links in our bio for more
