Nearly 60% of U.S. baby food does not meet World Health Organization standards

American commercial baby food products are not living up to nutritional and promotional standards set by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, according to a new study.

The study, published Wednesday in the academic journal Nutrients, studied 651 commercial food products marketed for children between 6 months and 3 years old at America’s top 10 grocery chains in 2023 and measured their nutritional content and on-the-package marketing claims against the WHO standards.

Nearly 60% of the studied products did not meet the WHO European office’s nutritional guidelines, with only 267 products rated as compliant.

Snack-sized food products, the authors found, were the least compliant with WHO standards at 0%, while 56.8% of pouches met WHO nutritional standards.

Both product types represent significant segments of the solid food market for babies and toddlers, with nearly 20% of studied products qualifying as snacks and nearly 50% qualifying as pouches. Pouches, the authors noted, have boomed in popularity over the past decade, with their market growing by 900%.

“Time-poor parents are increasingly choosing convenience foods, unaware that many of these products lack key nutrients needed for their child’s development, and tricked into believing they are healthier than they really are,” Elizabeth Dunford, one of the study’s authors, told Scripps News.

None of the products met all of the WHO promotional guidelines, and nearly all products had at least one claim on their packaging that would be prohibited under WHO standards, and some products had as many as 11 prohibited claims.

Among the issues was vague language, with some products using words like “tots,” “crawling baby” and “toddler” in the labels rather than measuring suitability by the child’s age in months or years.

The authors of the study said that the U.S. does not have nutritional and promotional guidelines for commercial baby food akin to the WHO. A page dedicated to food safety for babies and toddlers on the Food and Drug Administration website mentions guidelines set for baby formula.