A UK supermarket has taken the decision to remove cartoon characters from their cereal boxes in an attempt to help reduce childhood obesity.
Lidl will be removing these cartoon figures from its own-brand ‘Crownfield’ cereal boxes across the country – including stores in Shanklin and Newport – by spring 2020.
The idea behind this radical change in branding is to help make “healthy and informed choices” without the pressure of “pester power” from their children, according to a Lidl spokesperson.
Georgina Hall, Lidl’s head of corporate social responsibility, said:
“We want to help parents across Britain make healthy and informed choices about the food they buy for their children.
“We know pester power can cause difficult battles on the shop floor and we’re hoping that removing cartoon characters from cereal packaging will alleviate some of the pressure parents are under.
“This latest move underpins our commitment to making good food accessible for everyone and helping customers lead healthier lives.”
The cereal boxes will remain available in stores up until Spring. This allows the existing stock to sell through and reduce waste before rolling out the new branded boxes.
According to the NHS, more than 1 in 5 children are overweight or obese when they begin school, and 1 in 3 children are overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school.
This news comes a day after we reported that Menthol Cigarettes will be banned from shops on the 20th May 2020 to prevent children from taking up the habit of smoking.
Parents have a choice of what to buy if it’s not healthy for children then don’t get it. They don’t need chocolate for breakfast
Cut tax credits out. Then the mothers, or ‘muvvers’ will have to make a decent egg and soldiers for breakfast, not just have a ‘fag’ whilst the kid tip up a box of sugar filled, ‘easy’ cereals.
Easy cash to the social housing kind, leads to slobby lives and easy food.
Cut their money to the bone.
Wouldn’t feed my kids that rubbish anyway.
food for poor people….
Parent’s shouldn’t be buying this rubbish anyway
Or just stop buying your children crap food full of sugar.
Main reason children so fat is they don’t do anything. Even at a young age they are more absorbed in the tv screen or ipads as opposed to being out and about playing with friends or taken to the local playparks. It is also parental responsibility to see this occurs. There’s a superb child minder in nettlestone who takes the smaller children out for a 1 hour walk every day rain or shine and does nature trails n stuff. Why can’t parents walk their kids to school (or is time more important than health?)?
On a bit of slight redemption for parents, a much higher percentage of kids are now on medication for allsorts (ADHD, epilepsy, the list goes on) and from medical experience ALL tablet coatings contain starch and unnecessary sugars and these side effects can contribute to weight gain.
Despite this education of the body as a whole needs to start at home, and if more children were fortunate enough like myself, the responsibility of obesity, manners and sexualism lies with those who cast their seed. It shouldn’t have the fall on the government, the nhs or undeserving individuals who have been taught how to function in a manner that suits.
Who is in control? The parents or the children?
I appreciate that parenting isn’t an easy task, but come on people, let’s not have the tail wagging the dog. Removing cartoon characters from cereal boxes isn’t the issue, reducing sugar and fats from our diets is. If Lidl want to be ground breakers, tackle these two issues first. Education about the long term effects of obesity, regular exercise (not just playing x box games) and a balanced diet are the way forward.
I’m going to be a millionaire by this time next year. I’ve decided to start my own cotton-wool manufacturing plant, so that every man, woman and child can be wrapped in it till they die!! The world has gone crazy!! We are living in such a nanny state now, that all our personal choices are being eradicated. Freedom of choice no longer exists. Freedom of speech no longer exists. One daren’t have an opposing view to someone in a minority, as it seems to be deemed to bullying. But we are all being bullied by minority views, whether it be about religion, politics or sexual persuasion. We live in a world where it is offensive to offend anyone! How did this happen??? Where have all the snowflakes come from that get tearful if anybody disagrees with them?
Menthol cigarettes and cartoons on cereal packets?? What’s next? Asking your neighbour to change the colour of his/her car because you don’t like it? I despair, I really do! In every walk of life now, you have minorities trying to impose their views on the rest of the population, simply by bullying people to have their same distorted views. Vegans and the lgbt crowd seem to be the biggest offenders. I’m really fed up with their views and lifestyles being rammed down my throat. If you want to be a vegan or gay, then fine. But I neither care, nor am interested in how you live your life.
But nobody is going to get any thinner by removing cartoons from cereal packets! Just another ill-informed idiot trying to impose their minority views on the majority.
Democracy is dead. RIP
let’s stick a photo of the female doctor on the cereal boxes and then kids will stay away from cereals lmao (i love doctor who even the new one, don’t @ me lmfao)