Salt Intake in Australian Children: Risks and Recommendations

This article investigates the amount of salt that Australian children consume and the risks associated with high salt intake. It includes a critical review of literature, research question, aims and hypothesis, research design and methods, and timeline.

Salt Intake in Australian Children
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Salt Intake in Australian Children
Introduction
The question of whether children are eating more salt has raised a lot of eyebrows in
recent times. Just like an adult, the overall intake of excess sodium in dietary has for a long time
been associated with high blood pressure in children. Compared to various developed countries,
the dietary sodium intake in the Australian society has been regarded to be high and is perceived
to have exceeded the overall dietary recommendations.[2] Given the fact that the aspect of high
blood pressure is often associated with the consumption of high content of sodium, it is likely
that children are in even more danger of developing complications such as hypertension as well
as subsequent cardiovascular diseases in case they continue taking high sodium intake at such an
early age. Various studies have identified determinant of the quality of diet consumed by both
adults as well as children in the Australian society. [3] While there has been an increasing trend
in the consumption of salt across the Australian community, there is an overall need for studies
to investigate the causative agents or rather the facilitators of salt consumptions, particularly by
children. The paper will achieve this by critically looking at the reviews of the already existing
literature, formulate a research question, decide on the research design and method, and finally
look at the timeline of the research.

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Critical Review of Literature
According to evidence from cross-sectional studies regarding children as well as
adolescents, these groups of individuals have been reported to have a rather positive association
with SES as well as fruits intake. [4] On the other hand, the report has associated lower level of
SES with poor dietary outcomes such as intakes of food with high cholesterol content soft drinks
as well as fast foods. Nonetheless, there are scarcities of researches examining the overall intake
of sodium among the Australian children.
According to FSANZ, there are various Australian children who are aged two and older
who consume approximately 2,150 mg of sodium every day from an average of about 5,500 mg
of salt. [5] The research indicates that close to 80 percent of this sodium consumption comes
mainly from processed foods while 20 percent of it comes from salt that is used particularly at
the table or rather in various home cooking. However, these estimates fail in taking account of
the small amount of sodium that results from naturally occurring sodium or rather sodium that
contains in various food additives. In this light, there has been an increasing need for parents to
be in the workforce thus leading into an increasing utilization of sodium out of homes. [10, p. 38]
In essence, it is approximated that nearly a half of the Australian preschool children opt to attend
a rather Long Day Care (LDC) centers where they are believed to consume nearly a half of their
nutrients. Consequently, such settings tend to play a major role in the overall nutritional levels of
a particular child in Australian society. [7] In this light, a National Quality Framework is
responsible for setting the overall Australian quality standards particularly for early childhood as
well as care and therefore specifies that the food that is provided to early stages of a child has to
be nutritional at all cost. However, such standards have for many instances been broken and thus
children are exposed to consume the unregulated amount of salt or rather sodium in their diet. In

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this light, this paper will tend to look into the assumption that Australian children are being
exposed to more salt intake. [8]
A new research that was done by the George Institute for Global Health suggests that
many children in Australia are being exposed to dietary with more than recommended sodium
content. [6] In fact, the research indicated that children are eating 9g a day that is way above the
set limit of about 6g a day or even lower. Additionally, the research shows that the while the
participants thought that they were consuming close to 6.8 grams, they were actually consuming
about 9g according to the results of the test that was done to their urine. [11, p. 1]Co-author as
well as an associate professor Jacqui Webster, of the George Institute, concluded that most of the
Australian citizens are unaware of the content of salt that they are consuming each day. [9]
While it is important to note that sodium is an integral part of the human health or rather
life itself, there are various complications that are directly linked to the excessive intake of salt
particularly to the children. Just like other elements does to the human body, a scale of imbalance
in regards to salt intake in children results to various effects with an aim of redressing the
balance. [11, p. 1] There are various bodily functions that sodium helps in regulating especially
that of balancing the pressure inside an individual’s body. While most dietary guidelines
recommend people to take food low in salt, there are other regulatory bodies that talks of food in
relation to their sodium content. In this case, the terms between salt and sodium in relation to
their content in the food are not interchangeable. According to recent studies, the issues of salt
have started to creep into the overall diets of the Australian children. Notably, these researches
suggest that the overall increase of salt intake may have a damaging effect or rather increase the
risk of high blood pressure including other complications in a later life of these children. [11, p.

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1] As a result, Australian and New Zealand’s food regulatory have set conditions that salt should
not be part of the ingredients particularly for children who are under 12 months.
According to Hoare et al. (2017) babies as well as children only require a small quantity
of salt in their diet. Nonetheless, due to the fact that salt is added to various food to the food that
people tend to purchase including bread, baked beans as well as biscuits and it is therefore easy
for children to have too much of the same in their dietary. [5] There are a lot of foods that are
produced in the Australian markets yet they have a high content of salt and it is therefore
imperative to check the nutritional information of foods that are meant for children before one
buys them. In this light, the nutritional information is often written in figures. [2] Moreover,
Australian nutritional guidelines recommend that parent should reduce the overall amount of salt
children tend to consume by avoiding salty snacks including crisps and biscuits and instead of
replacing them for snacks with low salt content. [3] The guideline as well ensures that babies
who are breastfed are getting the right amount of salt through breastfeeding. In this light, infant
formula milk is designed to have a similar quantity of salt to the breast milk. Parents are as well
recommended not to add salt to the foods when introducing solid foods to children.
Furthermore, there is no doubt evidence that the overall dietary habits in children, as well
as adolescence, are as well influence the later lives of these children. In this light, researches
have suggested that the habit of liking salt, as well as salty foods is considered as a learned taste
preference. Consequently, it is recommended that adults reducing their salt intake would be
successful particularly in the case of children change their preference habits of salt intake. In
essence, this can only be achieved in the Australian society if children are exposed to foods that
are low in salt content. [4] It is as well important not to add any salt to the foods that are taken by
children even if they are taking what the rest of the families are taking. One should always limit

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foods that are high in salty contents and thus should check their nutritional foods as well as
checking information and products that are aimed at children and therefore choose those that
contain less salt. [9] A diet which contains low salt throughout a child’s life helps in preventing
children from developing a taste of salty foods and thus reducing the overall likelihood of
children eating a diet in salt during their later lives.
Research Question
Due to the overall increase in concern regarding the amount of sodium that the Australian
children tend to consume, there have been investigations on this claim in recent past.
Consequently, the guiding question or rather the research question of this project is “Are the
Australian children eating too much salt?”
Research Aims and Hypothesis
The main aim of this research paper is to identify whether the Australian children are
consuming more salt than they are required by the Australian and New Zealand set standards.
Additionally, the paper is designed to identify the factors that result to more salt intake by the
Australian children. The hypothesis guiding this paper is that “The Australian children are eating
too much salt than required.”
Research Design and Methods
In essence, this study will be using the Long Day Care (LDC) centers where children will
be offered food and be consumed after which the result will be measured. [12] As informed by
the studies regarding dietary, the number was considered large as well as sufficient enough in the
provision of a dietary data. All the children were provided with food in the care center where a
rather conventional food system was applied throughout the process (purchasing raw food and
transforming it into the final product particularly for services). In this case, the food that was

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prepared for the children in the selected centers was snacks. Out of the overall 42 available LDC
centers, only thirteen were approached and therefore seven of them agreed to take part in the
survey. In essence, this was close to 54 percent response. Out of the centers that declined to take
part in the survey, 5 of them were privately owned while one of them was operated by the
government. The reasons that were cited by these centers revolved around time scarcity (n=2) as
well as disinterest (n = 4).
The research obtained its ethical approval from the Deakin University Human Research
Ethics Committee. The information of those children that took part was gathered by making an
initial phone call to the center managers. [7] Additionally, making the phone call assisted in
getting information regarding the facilities that would be used for food preparation practices.
During the research, managers participated in face-to-face meetings at the center something that
was beneficial especially in collecting data. [6] On these meetings, the managers were
resourceful in providing information on their overall use of menu planning guidelines.
Additionally, they informed on whether the entire staff had attended the nutrition menu planning
workshop in Australia and whether the menu review had been conducted prior to the survey.
Each of the centers prepared recipes for at least one week where data of the food that was
prepared was collected.
• Participants: The main participants in this research or rather survey were preschool children.
The children who attended the
• Data collection: The data was collected mainly through observation from all the children who
were aged 3 to 4 years particularly over one lunchtime period in every selected seven LCD
centers. The lunch meals were served using either of the following systems.
1. Teachers-served lunch in five centers

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In this light, each child was served with a rather pre-portioned lunch by their teachers while all
children ate together. [14] On the overall request, second or third serves of the particular lunch
were virtually portioned by the teachers.
2. Self-served lunch in 2 centers
In this case, children had the liberty of deciding the time they were ready to eat over the
lunchtime period and therefore took the responsibility of serving themselves from the main dish
that the teachers placed on the table. Second as well as third serves were allowed once all the
children had completed their first serves and it was thus portioned by children. Additionally,
deserts were provided across each center immediately after all the children had completed their
lunch meals.
• Data analysis: The research used rather descriptive statistics (mean (SD)) particularly in
describing sodium, the density of sodium, as well as the energy provided and consumed. [13] On
the other hand, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied in the assessment of the differences
of the average sodium and the overall sodium density that was provided and that which was
consumed over lunch time. [1, p. 132]
Timeline
The overall timeframe was about seven days to allow one to do a detailed literature
review which took one day, data collection that was allocated at least 4 days, and analysis of the
data and writing up of the manuscript which both took one day.
Conclusion
The research proposal has succeeded in formulating the research question and designed a
research method that is set to guide the paper. The amount of salt that children tend to consume

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is investigated by the use of LCD methods where children are provided lunch in different centers
and they are monitored.

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