Toddler Sold

I was wondering when someone was going to call time on the 'toddler milk' phenomenon.

The companies that make this stuff first set about creating brand new insecurities for the parents of young children, then tout them a solution to their non-existent problem in the form of a formulated milk powder. It reminds me so much of the tactics used by the same companies in their now discredited practice of flogging infant formula for newborns.

Toddlers have survived and thrived throughout human history without imbibing 'toddler milk'. Their nutritional needs are no different today. A well balanced diet, which may well contain cow's milk, is ideal for toddlers.

One argument by the manufacturers of these formulas is that they are a response to nutritional inadequacies in the diet of toddlers:

Executive director [of the Infant Formula Manufacturers' Association of Australia], Janet Carey, said the product was developed in Europe as a response to research showing that 30 per cent of young children were deficient in iron. "It really wasn't developed as a cynical way to getting around marketing restrictions [of infant formula] in Australia," she said.

She agreed with nutritionists that toddler milk was not necessary, "just like vitamin supplements aren't necessary", but it could supplement the diets of "fussy eaters".

Oh yes, they were thinking of the children, not the money!

If a child does have a deficiency of any kind, it should be diagnosed by a doctor and an appropriate remedy prescribed. If the best remedy is toddler milk, so be it. The ideal situation would for formulas targeted at infants and young children to be available by prescription only, where a real, rather than imagined, medical reason would be required for their distribution.

I've seen a real proliferation of food products designed to be bought by parents fooled into thinking that their little darling can't eat real food. Special 'toddler yoghurt' in small containers at twice the price, kids milk (again twice the price of ordinary milk) in the refrigerated milk section, with a bit of extra calcium and vitamin D added (for the record, dairy products are already among the best sources of both). There is a huge premium on these products, because food manufacturers have cottoned on to the fact that parents who lack proper knowledge of their child's nutritional needs are very open to suggestion, as are their wallets.

Parents are very vulnerable when it comes to suggestions that they're not doing the best thing by their child unless they buy Product X. It's really very unfair and manipulative on the part of the manufacturers to play on these insecurities.