In the News
New Chocolate Weetabix. Happy breakfast
Published: 23.08.2010
New research, commissioned by Weetabix, shows that despite an encouraging 80% of British schoolchildren eating breakfast before leaving home, family breakfasts are more a battle than a ball for today’s stressed-out parents.
The perfect tasty healthy cereal that ticks mums’ and children’s boxes is the holy grail of breakfast time. For some parents the trouble starts long before that; simply getting the kids out of bed is a struggle, let alone getting them to eat something.
During manic mornings more than a quarter of parents find encouraging their child to eat something healthy the most demanding feature of breakfast time and one in five parents would rather resort to their children eating anything at all than the guilt-inducing thought of them leaving the house on an empty stomach.
Nutrition is the prime concern for beleaguered parents when choosing breakfast for their brood (39%) and 1 in 3 harassed parents (32%) admit they are even confused as to what makes a healthy breakfast. Much of parents’ breakfast stress relates to sugar – with 14% saying their kids overloading on high-sugar content cereals is a key worry and a further 12% citing piling on extra sugar as a major stress factor.
The launch of Chocolate Weetabix should therefore provide some good news to homes across the UK - a new cereal with all the goodness of wholegrain in Weetabix and the tastiness of chocolate but containing half the sugar of the average chocolate flavoured breakfast cereal.
Chocolate Weetabix is high in fibre and low in salt, fortified with vitamins and iron and free from artificial colours, putting a smile on parents’ faces as well as their kids and ensuring everyone enjoys a happier breakfast.
Sian Porter, consultant Dietician to Weetabix, said: “Sometimes family breakfasts can feel like a major challenge for parents and carers. As a mum I know what a feat it is to feed the family healthy choices and keep everyone happy. The trick is to look for ‘best in class’. If children eat chocolate cereal, then choosing a wholegrain one with the least sugar and low salt means you are striking a balance.”
Despite 80% of children having breakfast before school, a fifth of parents actually admit that breakfast is becoming a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’ due to time pressures. Of those parents who do manage to get their children to fuel up before school 56% said it was their child who made the decision on what they ate. Breakfast is a meal when parents are able to encourage children to become independent but guide them in the choices they make by deciding what goes in the kitchen cupboard.
Cereal is still the top choice for both parents and kids, with 84% of parents and 66% of kids selecting it as the winning choice for the first meal of the day. The research also revealed that children are four times more likely to prefer chocolate cereal than their parents are for them to eat it, although with the launch of Chocolate Weetabix these figures could soon change.
