Experts: No advantage to reduced-sugar cereals

The new cereals were introduced last year as attention on the nation’s obesity epidemic forced food companies to rethink marketing strategies.

The $6.2 billion cold breakfast cereal industry has good reason to pay attention. Nearly 90 percent of children ages 6-12 regularly eat cereal, according to consumer research firm NPD Group. Two-thirds of them eat sweetened cereals.

And while overall cereal sales have been sliding, sales of reduced-sugar cereals grew by almost 50 percent last year, accounting for nearly $357 million in sales, according to ACNielsen.

To create sweetened cereals with cross-generational appeal, Kellogg’s simply cut the sugar, and its price for reduced-sugar Frosted Flakes is the same as the original.

However, Post and General Mills replaced some of the sugar with the pricier no-calorie sweetener Splenda, upping the cost per pound by as much as $1.12 over the full-sugar cereals.

Researchers at five universities — including Tufts, Harvard and Penn State — were hard-pressed to find advantages of the lower-sugar cereals. Even the cereal companies had a hard time.

At Post, maker of Half Sugar Fruity Pebbles, spokeswoman Abbe Serphos ultimately said the company is working to develop healthy products, a process that takes time.

Dr. Christina Economos at Tuft’s Friedman School of Nutrition said one possible advantage is that less sugar might mean fewer cavities. But she said it’s unclear whether the decrease (an average of 7 grams per serving) is enough.

Researchers cited several concerns, however, including that consumers will mistakenly assume less sugar means fewer calories and that the new cereals can help them watch their weight.

Christine Lowry, vice president of nutrition at Kellogg’s, said her company never has marketed its lower-sugar cereals as having fewer calories, and encourages people to watch their calories and read nutrition labels.

Economos also was critical of the cereals that use Splenda, saying it keeps children’s taste for sugar artificially high and can make it more difficult for parents to cut back.

Sheila Morris, a mother of three from Concord, N.H., has tried to do that. She recently bought her daughters reduced-sugar Trix. But she was dismayed to learn that it’s no better than the full-sugar Froot Loops they also enjoy.

Though her girls, ages 7, 8 and 10, seemed to enjoy the new cereal, Morris said she won’t buy it again.

“You assume it’s healthier by the way it’s presented,” she said. “It’s very misleading.”

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