March 2013
Featured in this insight: Consumer goods & FMCG , Food & drink, Medical & healthcare, Children & young people
Snack survey sees UK children eating too much unhealthy food: A survey commissioned by YouGov SixthSense has revealed that while children in the UK now eat healthy snacks every day, the benefits are undone because they also eat a disproportionate amount of junk food.
The study found that one in three children eat crisps every day and almost two-thirds have them as regular snack, which YouGov SixthSense calls “alarming” given the rising child obesity figures.
Although just over half of the eight to 15 year-olds who took part in the survey (58%) eat healthy snacks such as fruit, vegetables, seeds or rice cakes, as many as 89% will also at the same time eat food laden with salt, fat or sugar such as crisps, biscuits, confectionery and cakes.
Overall, confectionary was found to be a more popular choice amongst kids than an apple or banana – 63% of children opt for sweets as their first choice compared with 54% who would choose fruit.
Additionally, nearly seven in ten children snack at least once a day, with 16% nibbling at least twice a day between meals.
In contrast, the most popular snack voted by adults is fruit (51%), followed by crisps (43%), biscuits (40%), chocolate bars (36%) and other chocolate confectionery (27%).
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