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Heart charity champions traffic lights and GDA hybrid
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has called for a mandatory front-of-pack labelling system to help parents understand the nutritional values of the products they are buying for their children.
In a report titled "How parents are being misled", prepared by the The Food Commission on behalf of the BHF, there are multiple examples of the confusion caused by misleading images and information on packs.
Coco Pops Cereal and Milk Bars, for example, use images of grapes and a wholemeal bread sandwich on the packaging to promote the idea of a healthy snack, despite them containing 41g of sugar per 100g and adult guideline daily amounts on pack.
BHF chief executive Peter Hollins called on the UK government to "rigorously limit" the marketing of unhealthy foods and "make sure that labels are clear and consistent".
BHF Policy manager Mubeen Bhutta said the BHF favours a hybrid of the traffic lights and GDA system.
"We think there needs to be a single system across all food labels to make sure that people understand it," she said.
Earlier in the year the BHF published the "Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing" report, which highlighted that the use of images of celebrities to promote a product is allowed on pack, but not under the Committee of Advertising Practice on adverts.
The BHF has called for a new regulatory system that overcomes such inconsistencies.
