A bowl of cereal alone shouldn’t give you or your kids the shakes first thing in the morning. But considering the amount of sugar in these breakfast favorites, don’t be too surprised if you start feeling a little rattled. Here are some of the least healthful breakfast cereals marketed directly to children according to the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, which studied 277 different types of cereal and ranked them based on a variety of health factors. Don’t be surprised if they’re among your adult favorites too. (This might just change your grocery shopping habits.)
10. Froot Loops
These colorful loops, not surprisingly, are among the least healthful breakfast cereals. Regular Froot Loops are 41 percent sugar and 10 percent fiber, plus red, blue and yellow dyes. But the Marshmallow version is even worse. They’re 48 percent sugar and 7 percent fiber.
9. Corn Pops
Certain cereals are just as sugary as a glazed doughnut, according to Consumer Reports findings last year. “We studied how 91 youngsters, ages 6 to 16, poured their cereal and found that, on average, they served themselves about 50 percent to 65 percent more than the suggested serving size for three of the four tested cereals,” it said. Corn Pops are 41 percent sugar and have no fiber at all, according to Rudd Center studies.
8. Reese’s Puffs
“Reese’s Puffs is an interesting case because it’s the worst brand in terms of nutrition in our study,” and much of its advertising targets African Americans, notes Jennifer Harris, Rudd Center marketing director. “In its TV advertising, there are only black actors and on their Web site, it’s all about Reese’s puffs raps with black animated characters saying ‘get your bling,’” Harris explains. African Americans already have higher rates of obesity, so that was disturbing. Reese’s Puffs are 41 percent sugar and 3 percent fiber, and contain red, yellow and blue dyes.
7. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles
These colorful breakfast bits have at least one redeeming quality: they’re fairly high in fiber. But that “doesn’t make a huge difference. The sugar is really the most disturbing thing about this. All Americans eat too much sugar, and if you serve that much sugar at breakfast, that takes up their sugar allocation for the day," Harris says.
Plus, the Post cereals website, Postopia.com, features games for kids that aren’t accessible unless you have a Post token, which you can only get by buying the cereal, Harris notes. And the majority of these kid-focused cereal websites feature breakfast favorites with poor nutrition ratings, the Rudd study found. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles are 37 percent sugar and 10 percent fiber, and clearly may leach brightly colored dye into your milk.
6. Frosted Flakes
“If you look at marketing literature and market research, it shows that the earlier you introduce brands to children and the more feelings you can associate with your brand, the more they’ll be involved in the brand,” Harris says. Enter Tony the Tiger. Frosted Flakes are 37 percent sugar and 3 percent fiber. The lower-sugar version is 26 percent sugar and doesn’t have any added artificial sweeteners.
5. Trix
With the “Trix are for kids” tagline, there’s no denying that the sugar-coated, colorful cereal is marketed to children as fun. And kids may be affected by these ads at a younger age that you might think. Two- to five-year-old kids saw sugary cereal ads more often (about 550 times per year) than adults (200 times per year). “The number of cereal advertisements viewed by preschoolers is disturbing. Children under age seven or eight years do not possess the cognitive abilities to understand the persuasive intent of advertising, and therefore have no ability to defend against its influence,” the Rudd Center report said.
“I’ve had many parents tell me their kids aren’t affected by ads,” says Harris, "[but] I think advertising affects kids in ways that parents don’t understand.” Trix are 38 percent sugar and 3 percent fiber, and contain red yellow and blue dyes.
