As a child, I always started my day with a bowl of cereal – usually Cocoa Puffs or Cap’n Crunch. While the same cereal-for-breakfast habit has followed me into adulthood, my bowl is now filled with more nutrient-dense options.

Sure, my beloved childhood cereals were fortified with vitamins, but they were also loaded with sugar and mostly made from refined grains. Health professionals agree that sweetened cereals may reduce the overall nutritional quality of breakfast – but parents think kids won’t eat the healthy, whole grain stuff.

When did cereals become so sweet? And how can you get your kids to eschew the marshmallow bits in favour of high fibre?

Sugary goodness

Cereal was introduced to North America in the late 1800s. It was a crunchy health food made of baked whole grains, and was offered in hospitals and health spas. The first pre-sweetened cereal, Sugar Crisp, was introduced to the market in 1949. 

From the 1950s through to the 1980s, cereal’s popularity exploded. They were marketed based on two key attributes: vitamin enrichment and sugar content. Clearly, the former offering was for parents and the latter for their kids.

Quaker’s now defunct Quake cereal was touted as “The Vitamin Powered Sugary Cereal.” Words like “sugar-coated” and “frosted” were used as marketing ploys – the sweeter, the better. Even sweet cereals seemed to be healthy, since they were “fortified” or “enriched” with vitamins and minerals.

In the 1990s, companies began to downplay the sugar content of their cereals to appease the changing tide in nutritional knowledge. Sugar Pops became Corn Pops, and Sugar Crisp morphed into Golden Crisp. However, while sugar was eliminated from the cereal names, the sugar content of the actual cereals remained the same. The average sweetened cereal has about 12 grams of sugar per serving, which is roughly three teaspoons of the white stuff.

Marketing tactics also remained the same, with brightly coloured cartoon characters representing many brands. Studies show that children are attracted to cereals that have funny characters on the box – regardless of whether the cereal inside is unsweetened or laden with sugar. Unfortunately, the cartoon characters only seem to make it onto Lucky Charms and Froot Loops, not onto Bran Flakes.

Better choices

Sadly, we’ve come a long way since cereal had just one or two ingredients. Early cereals had no added salt, sugar or artificial colours, and this back-to-basics approach should be what we strive for in a breakfast cereals today – especially for children. The good guys are still out there; they go by names like Weetabix, Cheerios and Shredded Wheat. But will Mikey like it?

A 2010 study conducted by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University looked at children’s breakfast habits at three summer camps. Children were randomly assigned to receive a choice of three high-sugar cereals or three low-sugar cereals. Each child was also offered low-fat milk, orange juice, fresh fruit and packets of sugar.

The researchers found that when low-sugar cereals were the only option, children ate them – and gasp – enjoyed them! The children reported “liking” or “loving” the cereal they chose whether it was a high-sugar or low-sugar variety. As a bonus, the children who ate the low-sugar cereals were more than six times as likely to add fresh fruit (54 percent versus 8 percent) than the children who ate the high-sugar cereals.

The bottom line

If you only buy low-sugar cereals, your kids will probably eat them. Try creating a signature morning blend by mixing different cereals, and ensure you add some bran flakes or psyllium for good measure. Offer the kids a colourful variety of fresh berries to replace the marshmallow bits.

When choosing cereals, read food labels on cereal boxes and opt for choices that:

• List “whole grain” as the first ingredient
• Have 4 grams (1 tsp) of sugar or less per 30 g serving
• Contain 4 g fibre or more per 30 g serving
• Have less than 240 mg sodium per 30 g serving

And remember, cereals are described as “part” of a balanced breakfast – the other parts that should be included are the nutrient-rich fruit and low-fat milk.