The dangers of excessive sugar consumption has garnered a lot of media attention over the last few months, and with Easter week just around the corner MummyPages.co.uk, Britain’s fastest growing parenting community, conducted n-depth research into Easter egg consumption in the UK.
The research examines how parents’ attitudes are changing towards the age old tradition of gifting chocolate Easter eggs, and how mums relieve their homes of the excess chocolate.
When it comes to the sheer quantity of Easter eggs gifted to children around the holiday, MummyPages can reveal that half of kids will receive between five to ten eggs, with almost one in ten receiving a whopping ten to 15 chocolate eggs. Just 15% of children will receive between one and two eggs and just under 50% will receive less than five.
Worryingly, two-fifths of mums say their children will mainly receive the larger sized variety rather than the child sized eggs.
And with the average sugar content in large size Easter eggs equating to 48 teaspoons of sugar compared to 12 teaspoons in smaller child sized eggs, it's actually quite frightening.
With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the majority of parents ration their children’s chocolate egg intake, with six in ten mums admitting to intercepting some of their child's eggs.
Interestingly, almost two-thirds of mums surveyed would prefer if extended family members and close friends consulted them prior to gifting their children with a chocolate Easter Eggs. In the last few years, there has been a shift towards alternative Easter gifts with books, new clothes and toys the most popular.
MummyPages research highlights how parents are becoming more health conscious about the amount of sugar children, and indeed the whole family, are consuming. In fact, over half of parents surveyed are calling for the Government to introduce new merchandising, manufacturing and labelling regulations on the sale and packaging of Easter eggs in a bid to curb our looming obesity crisis.
"The temptation at Easter to demonstrate your love for your family members in kilograms of chocolate is easily understood given the huge displays of affordable chocolate on offer at this time of year. However too much of this kind of 'love' will actually hurt those you care about the most," said Laura Haugh, Mum-in-Residence for MummyPages.
“Shockingly, the UK has the highest level of obesity in Western Europe and all of our Easter chocolate will certainly not help this fact. Children are the biggest recipients of Easter themed chocolate at this time of year, with grandparents the biggest culprits. Thankfully, over half of our MummyPages mums report intercepting or siphoning away chocolate excess before their little tummies are overindulged."
