A single yoghurt can max-out children's daily sugar allowance, officials warn

Children’s yoghurts can contain almost the entire daily sugar allowance, health officials have warned.

Analysis of major brands by Public Health Liverpool found some products contain the equivalent of almost five sugar cubes.

NHS guidelines say children aged between four and six should have no more than 19g or five cubes of free sugar - sugar not “locked in” naturally to products - a day, while seven-to-10-year-olds should have no more than six cubes.

Public Health Liverpool is to highlight its findings with a media campaign across health centres, dentists' surgeries, children's centres and hospitals over the coming months.

The drive, is aimed at tackling childhood obesity in the city, where figures show around 12% of school reception age children and more than 23% of year six pupils are classed as obese.

Almost a third of five-year-olds in Liverpool have decayed, missing or filled teeth, with two children a day under the age of 10 having to be admitted to hospital to get teeth removed.

Councillor Tim Beaumont, mayoral lead for wellbeing, said: "Parents are bombarded by marketing messages that yoghurts are healthy. Some are, but many are loaded with sugar and families simply don't realise how much is in them.

"We're not trying to say 'don't eat that', we're trying to present people with information in a way that's easy to understand, so they have a choice.

"Combined with other sugary snacks, drinks and chocolate bars, yoghurts are contributing to an alarming level of tooth decay and obesity in children."

Dr Sandra Davies, Liverpool's director of public health, said: "Tackling sugar in diets is a real priority for us because we know that people simply don't realise how much they are consuming.”

The number of sugar cubes in popular yoghurts, as analysed by Public Health Liverpool:

4.9 - Muller corner

4.7 - Aldi Brooklea (own brand)

4.5 - Asda own brand

3.3 - Smarties (Nestle)

2.6 - Ski (Nestle)

2.2 - Lidl Milbona (own brand)

2.1 - Petits Filous (Yoplait)

2 - Munch Bunch (Nestle)

Each cube 4g of added sugar

A spokesman for Muller said the company had taken 1,759 tonnes of sugar out of our yogurt products since 2015, amounting to a 13.5% reduction.