On TV all the time in Australia - in the afternoons, morning and just about any time when parents and children would be expected to be watching .

The advertisement begins... And proceeds to tell us that Nutella can help your children to learn because it's full of energy and low gi - just what your children need to get on in life yes? The advertisement features a concerned mother and a school teacher both plugging away at this wonderful product with the presenter explaining -
“Nutella gives kids plenty of energy to live and learn” with “over 100 hazelnuts and skim milk".
Their advertising and labeling provides this useful information, with Hearth Foundation like ticks, so we can make an informed decision about what we are feeding our children.

The reality is... This a typical example of the norms in television advertising - an industry that is 'self regulated' (read 'no regulation') -and we are regularly told 'clinical tests show' and 'your hair will be 320% stronger' without any plausible or scientific basis for these claims. Nutella has taken ads to a all time low, advertising their product, for children, as a healthy food source, low gi no less... The reality is somewhat different.

Even the Nutella web site tries its best to hide the awful truth about what's going on your bread at their US web site by providing cryptic %DV (percentage of your daily calorie values) - without even knowing your body size or how much you exercise. In this way they can show their spread provides you 8% of your daily carb requirements instead of the following ACTUAL values.

What you kids get when they have a mouth full of this stuff...

Ingredient Per 37 Grams Per 100 Grams Percentage fat 11 29.73 29.73% sugars 20 54.05 54.05% fibre 2 5.41 5.4% protein 2 5.41 5.4% sodium 0 0.04 0.04% unknown 2 5.41 5.4%

They were also kind enough to provide measurements per 37 grams - instead of the 100 grams that is generally used for comparison. With the above figures, it's not hard to guess the primary ingredient of Nutella - more than 50% sugar. Lots of energy in sugar that's true, but most parents wouldn't give their child a block of sugar and fat to keep them going at school.

There are loads of products, marketed for children that are being sold as healthy choices when that's far from the truth. Even Coco Pops have started to preach their low gi credentials, despite the cereal's alarmingly high sugar content.

See the Childrens Food Advertisement Awards 2005 - Nominations - by The Parents Jury, for more examples of this type of deceptive advertising.