Leading baby food brands making high-sugar meals, study finds

Top brands such as Ella’s Kitchen and Heinz are making sugar-heavy, nutritionally poor baby food that fails to meet the needs of infants, a study has found.The discovery has spurred groups to call for ministers to strengthen regulation in the market, saying that the current state of affairs will negatively affect child growth and development.Researchers at the University of Leeds School of Food Science and Nutrition found that some brands also carried misleading marketing claims, leading them to urge the government to “act now” in imposing the same traffic light system found on chocolate bars and ice-cream.Ella’s Kitchen pear and peach baby rice was found to have a rice content of only 3%, while sugar made up 60% of its calories.Heinz fruity banana custard gets 71% of its total calories from sugar, with its ingredients only containing 4% milk powder, while its baby oat porridge is 29% sugar

Letter: Elizabeth Sclater obituary

In the early 2000s Elizabeth Sclater and I collaborated on the rights of older people. At the time I was working with HelpAge International.Elizabeth was an indomitable advocate for older people in general and for older women especially, founding the Older Women’s Network, Europe (OWN-EU) and speaking out fearlessly from many global and international platforms on the “internalised ageism” that holds back the championing of their rights.I was last with her at the UN in Geneva in 2023, when she spoke out on the subject. At the start of this month I was again in Geneva to witness the historic consensus decision by UN member states at the Human Rights Council to form an intergovernmental working group to draft the text of a legally binding convention on the rights of older persons

No extra money for NHS staff and teacher pay rises, warns Treasury

Pay rises for NHS staff and teachers must be paid from existing budgets, the Treasury has warned, setting up the potential for strike action.Separate independent pay review bodies for teachers and NHS staff in England are reportedly set to make higher pay rise recommendations than ministers had suggested.Both the NEU and NASUWT teaching unions have threatened strike action if schools do not get extra funding to pay for the salary increase for teachers. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has also warned it will not accept pay awards taking resources from the frontline.However, the Guardian understands that the Treasury has said it will categorically not fund the pay rises by borrowing, meaning that additional pay increases must come from cuts to other budgets

Commissioner calls for ban on apps that make deepfake nude images of children

Artificial intelligence “nudification” apps that create deepfake sexual images of children should be immediately banned, amid growing fears among teenage girls that they could fall victim, the children’s commissioner for England is warning.Girls said they were stopping posting images of themselves on social media out of a fear that generative AI tools could be used to digitally remove their clothes or sexualise them, according to the commissioner’s report on the tools, drawing on children’s experiences. Although it is illegal to create or share a sexually explicit image of a child, the technology enabling them remains legal, the report noted.“Children have told me they are frightened by the very idea of this technology even being available, let alone used. They fear that anyone – a stranger, a classmate, or even a friend – could use a smartphone as a way of manipulating them by creating a naked image using these bespoke apps,” the commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, said

Ultra-processed food increases risk of early death, international study finds

Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.UPF is so damaging to health that it is implicated in as many as one in seven of all premature deaths that occur in some countries, according to a paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.They are associated with 124,107 early deaths in the US a year and 17,781 deaths every year in England, the review of dietary and mortality data from eight countries found.Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson, the lead investigator of the study, from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, said that additives such as sweeteners and flavourings harm health not just UPFs’ high levels of fat, salt and sugar

Being shouted at by parents can alter child’s brain, experts tell UK MPs

Being shouted at by their parents reshapes children’s brains and makes them more likely to have mental ill-health and struggle to maintain friendships, MPs will hear on Monday.Verbal abuse by adults can leave children unable to enjoy pleasure and seeing the world as threatening, experts in child development and mental health will tell a meeting at Westminster.“As children we believe what we are told, deeply folding the words of adults into our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. When those words are hostile, demeaning or humiliating, they can have lifelong consequences,” said Prof Eamon McCrory, a clinical psychologist, chief executive of the mental health charity Anna Freud and a professor of developmental neuroscience and psychopathology at University College London (UCL).“They can profoundly shape our sense of self and whether we feel lovable and confident in navigating an unpredictable world