{"id":21069,"date":"2010-05-06T11:54:20","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T16:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=21069"},"modified":"2010-05-06T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T16:54:20","slug":"chocolate-baby-formula-concerns-nutritionists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/05\/chocolate-baby-formula-concerns-nutritionists\/","title":{"rendered":"Chocolate Baby Formula Concerns Nutritionists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There has been a lot of buzz surrounding baby food recently. You have the Baby Food Diet<\/a>, which has been linked to celebrities like Jennifer Aniston<\/a>. And, now we have a controversy over baby food made, well, for actual babies.<\/p>\n

Nutritionists and others concerned about the childhood obesity epidemic in the U.S. are crying foul over new chocolate- and vanilla-flavored baby food.<\/p>\n

We already know that there has been research linking obese parents to the likelihood of obese children<\/a>. But, do we have to make it even more of a certainty by getting babies attached to chocolate basically at birth?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. introduced the flavors as beverages for toddlers who are transitioning from infant formula or breast milk. The chocolate and vanilla formulas are milk-based, but contain 19 grams of sugar per 7-ounce serving.<\/p>\n

Mead Johnson is trying to mitigate concerns.<\/p>\n

“The toddlers’ years can be particularly challenging since food preferences may be erratic and unpredictable,” said Mead Johnson spokesman Chris Perille. “Products such as Enfagrow Premium can play a role in helping children achieve a more balanced, healthy daily diet.”<\/p>\n

But nutritionists, like Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, disagree.<\/p>\n

“You want kids to be interested in eating a very, very wide range of foods because variety helps create nutritional balance,” she said. “You don’t want them to think that every food needs to be sweet or salty.”<\/p>\n

Mead Johnson is one of three companies that dominate the baby food industry. In 2026, the company reported total sales of $2.8 billion, with $1.9 billion from infant formula and $900 million from children’s nutritional products, mostly toddler milk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding baby food recently. You have the Baby Food Diet, which has been linked to celebrities like Jennifer Aniston. And, now we have a controversy over baby food made, well, for actual babies. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1367,3695],"tags":[3342,314,29],"class_list":["post-21069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-health","category-diet-and-nutrition","tag-baby-food","tag-childhood-obesity","tag-nutrition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21069"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21075,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069\/revisions\/21075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}