A debate on the level of salt consumed by children is being held as part of World Salt Awareness Week.

A consumer poll revealed that parents wanted more action to be taken about salt levels in children’s foods.

The results of the poll, commissioned by the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health, will be discussed today (January 31) at an event being held as part of International Salt Awareness Week.


Hosted by The George Institute for International Health, at the State Library of New South Wales, the event will bring together key players from the food industry, government and health to consider: How can we protect our children against the harmful effects of eating too much salt?

Recent research shows that salt raises blood pressure in children, leading to hypertension in adults. Although the health problems associated with high blood pressure often don't appear until later in life, they are strongly influenced by childhood health.

AWASH chair, Bruce Neal, senior director at The George Institute said, “Parents in our poll reported that children are frequently eating salty snacks. Many of the staple foods eaten by Australian children also have a lot of salt in them. This can make it extremely difficult for parents to keep salt intakes at a healthy level.”

AWASH, which coordinates the Drop the Salt! Campaign, wants to work with the Government to make salt reduction a national health priority.

Salt reduction is an extremely cost-effective disease prevention strategy, according to Neal.

“A comprehensive government strategy, including setting targets for salt levels in foods and raising awareness of the maximum recommended intake levels for children, is urgently required,” he said. “If Australians reduced their salt intake to recommended levels, we would prevent about one fifth of all strokes and heart attacks in Australia each year.”

Many key players support this initiative. The Australian food industry has already made progress in reducing salt in food products and recognises that more can be done.

Australian Food and Grocery Council CEO, Dick Wells said, “The AFGC supports raising awareness among consumers of the need to moderate their salt intake to 6g per day and the food industry is continually exploring ways to reformulate products to better meet the needs of consumers including providing lower salt options.”

In Sydney for the event, Dame Deirdre Hutton, chair of the UK Government’s Food Standards Agency said, “We have made great strides in the UK by working closely with the food industry to encourage salt reductions across a wide range of everyday foods - in parallel with a multi-million pound social marketing campaign to raise consumer awareness.” Hutton will outline the UK strategy and discuss progress in achieving challenging government targets.

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council recommends a maximum upper level of 3.5g salt per day for 4-8 year olds, and 5g for 9-13 year olds. However, adding up the salt content of a typical child’s meals and snacks for a day, shows it would be very easy to consume over twice this amount.

AWASH has been working with the food industry since May 2007 to achieve an overall reduction of salt content in processed foods by 25% over a five year period.

World Salt Awareness Week has run for nine years in the UK and is to be supported for the first time in Australia today. In addition to Australia, other countries joining in this year are Poland, Bangladesh, Georgia, Barbados, Canada, Sweden, Israel, Slovenia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Slovakia, Finland, Turkey, Portugal, Turkey, USA, India and Pakistan. The week runs from January 28 to February 3 but Australia has decided to focus on the one day, January 31.

For more information go to www.awash.org.au

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