Yesterday, Mother Jones ran a quick item in which they revealed that Mead-Johnson is making chocolate-flavored baby formula, with ingredients that look alarmingly similar to those not-very-good-for-you chocolate drinks you got at the gas station when you were a kid.
What's especially scary, too, is that we already know how good formula companies are at marketing baby formula for babies well past the age when they need it. When coupled with solid foods, formula can quickly help push a baby's weight too high.
Marion Nestle at Food Politics says nutritionists have been complaining about this product for awhile, and not just because of the ingredients. If it's a weaning food, as Mead-Johnson sometimes says, then it's competing with milk. But it also says "toddler formula" on the front and is clearly being marketed to children as old as a year. The company also makes some questionable health claims, for which Nestle lampoons Mead-Johnson:
But really, aren't you worried that your baby might be suffering from a chocolate deficit problem? Don't you love the idea of year-old infants drinking sugar-sweetened chocolate milk? And laced with “omega-3s for brain development, 25 nutrients for healthy growth, and prebiotics to support the immune system”?
Children as old as a year don't need chocolate milk. This is the kind of product that just shouldn't be produced, whatever kind of "parents should know better," argument one wants to make. It does no good, has the potential to do harm, and is misleading on its cover.
-- Monica Potts
