From the Australian
Children as young as four are at risk of developing high blood pressure and eventual cardiovascular disease because of high levels of salt in many processed foods. Even some foods that parents regard as healthy - such as breakfast cereals, cheese, ham and processed meats - are so loaded with salt that young children can easily eat well above their safe daily limit before they have started their evening meal, experts have warned.
The National Heart Foundation will today warn parents to be more vigilant about how much salt their children eat, saying too much puts them at risk of long-term problems and makes healthy home-cooked food taste bland by comparison. If this happened, children were more likely to reject the home cooking and seek more processed, energy-dense foods.
The foundation said a four-year-old who ate cereal for breakfast, a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and just 25 grams of savoury biscuits for an afternoon snack would have eaten, before dinner time, nearly three times the amount of salt needed for an entire day.
Post-mortem examinations of four-year-old children in Britain have revealed signs of early vascular disease, according to Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital Medical School in London. A recent study conducted by Professor MacGregor showed for the first time that if children reduced their salt intake, there was a significant fall in their blood pressure.
"If you cut your salt intake, do more exercise, eat more fruit and vegetables and lose weight, that will cause substantial reductions in blood pressure, and will probably prevent you having to take tablets later in life (to control raised blood pressure)," he said.
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