ARE THEY CRACKED?
The State’s healthy eating watchdog says children should only get ONE chocolate egg over the WHOLE of Easter – and a medium-sized one at that! Instead, relatives should give books or toys. Good luck with that...
NUTRITION watchdogs have urged parents to limit their children’s chocolate intake over the holiday period to just one medium-sized Easter egg.
Irish youngsters will devour as many as five million chocolate treats over the long weekend – with the average child expected to get four eggs, and almost one in
five receiving six or more.
Just one medium-sized Easter egg contains 23 teaspoons of sugar – almost four times a child’s recommended daily intake. But health experts have said children should still be able to enjoy the traditional fun associated
with Easter without stuffing themselves with calorie-laden treats. Safefood Ireland’s chief specialist in nutrition, Joana da Silva, said: ‘We certainly don’t want to take the fun out of Easter for children, and we recognise Easter eggs are very much part of the tradition at this time of year.
‘But at the same time we are concerned at the huge size of some of the eggs in the supermarkets, and also how much earlier Easter eggs are appearing on the shelves of shops every year.’
She added that Easter eggs ‘are clearly very profitable’, and said it is ‘not realistic to expect supermarkets to take them off their shelves’. ‘But there are measures that parents can take,’ she added. ‘One recommendation is for parents to have a word with other family members, like aunts and uncles, or grandparents, and ask them to buy the children a nontreat present instead.
‘And parents need to stop buying the eggs that come in large sizes. One or two small Easter Eggs should be the limit, or one medium-sized one.’
Ms da Silva suggested alternative gifts for children could include ‘a small toy or a book’.
The Irish Heart Foundation also backed the idea that relatives should give Easter gifts other than chocolate eggs, and said the number of treats purchased by parents should be strictly rationed. Sarah Noone, registered dietitian with the IHF, said: ‘We are now seeing situations where there are quite a lot of eggs coming into our homes over the Easter period.
‘Much of this is due to the “pester power” and temptation driven by marketing and clever promotion targeted at children – not just at Easter time, but almost all seasonal holidays.’
Ms Noone said enjoying ‘a little of the sweet treats over Easter won’t do much harm’, but that ‘the issue is how much chocolate adults and children consume over the Easter period’. ‘It’s not that children can’t have an Easter egg, but instead perhaps think about limiting how many eggs your child gets,’ she said.
Ms Noone said there are ‘lots of fun alternatives to chocolate eggs’, including ‘grow-your-own egg-themed cress plant sets, bunny-shaped moulds, Easter egg colouring books with eggshaped crayons, fluffy Easter toys or bunny pyjamas’.
She added: ‘For older children, a small Easter basket filled with gifts like Easter-themed mugs, stationery or slippers can work great too.’
A report last week by supermarket sales analysts Kantar revealed that Irish shoppers had already shelled out €15million on Easter eggs this year – a full fortnight before the holiday.
With the average chocolate egg selling for just €2.50, the spend equated to an astonishing six million chocolate treats flying off the shelves – almost one for every person on the island of Ireland.
And with many supermarkets offering three-for-two deals, the scramble for the oval treats is likely to continue apace.
A survey by iReach Insights found four out of five adults in Ireland will purchase an egg this year, with the average person buying two each. The reasons people celebrate Easter include that they’ve been used to it from a young age (57%), that it’s an opportunity to spend time with family (54%), and that they love chocolate (43%).
The top five chocolate brands at Easter are Cadbury (70%), Lindt (57%), Mars (Galaxy, Twix, Snickers, etc, 48%), Butlers (45%) and Ferrero Rocher (44%).
‘Much of it is due to pester power’