This January, Public Health England (PHE) have launched a 4.5 million Change4Life campaign in a bid to cut children's sugar consumption, nudging parents to 'make a swap' when buying something sweet for their little ones.

Children have already exceeded the maximum recommended sugar intake for an 18 year old by the time they are 10. They are consuming an extra 2,800 sugar cubes a year, which is more than double the recommended guidelines.

The Change4Life campaign came to light as new data shows 76% of parents who have children 18 and under are concerned about the amount of sugar their children consume and 68% are concerned about the amount of fat in their children’s diets.

This represents the majority of parents will want to make those healthier sugar swaps for their children. They will show a personal commitment as the more swaps that they make for themselves and their children, the greater they will feel about these beneficial changes.

Half of the sugar in children’s diets comes from sugary drinks, sweets, biscuits, cakes, sugary breakfast cereals and higher-sugar yoghurts.

Here are five simple Smart Swaps to help you get started:

  • Sugary drinks to diet, sugar free or no added sugar drinks
  • Cheese to reduced fat cheese
  • Butter to lower fat butters or spreads
  • Sugary cereal to low sugar cereal, for example, plain whole wheat cereal biscuits, plain shredded whole grain or plain porridge
  • Whole milk to semi-skimmed; or semi-skimmed to 1% fat or skimmed milk

Sign up to the Smart Swaps campaign today https://registration.change4life.co.uk/change4life and receive a free Smart Swapper pack full of nutritious meal ideas, fridge magnets and money-off vouchers. There is also a free Smart Recipes app available, which can be downloaded from iTunes and GooglePlay.

For those who sign up to the campaign, Public Health England have announced £840,000 worth of vouchers, including money off sugar free drinks and lots of offers on healthier products which will be provided by commercial partners; Aldi, Lidl, Asda and The Co-operative Food stores across the country.

As an agency, influencing behaviours is core to what we do and applying Behavioural Economics to marketing communications is a natural progression. If you are interested in understanding more about how we do this get in touch now.

Find out more about the connection between consumers and behavioural economics in our latest report on the top trends driving consumer behaviour. Download it here.