Cheerios Research Paper

Walking down the streets of the United States, it seems impossible to avoid the sight of a major problem that is growing at extreme and fatal rates. This problem is known as obesity, which can lead to many other health problems such as diabetes and high cholesterol. One of the many causes for this is an unbalanced diet filled with foods high in fat and sugar. When given the choice, it is safe to say that many would be quick to grab a chocolate bar over a chai kale smoothie when hunger strikes. Many food companies have tried to follow the trend of the love of sweet foods by adding a fatal ingredient to their products. This ingredient is sugar. Cheerios is one of the oldest General Mills cereals and has been enjoyed by many generations, passed

They did this through a process called line extension. Line extension is when a company takes an already known product and creates different products under the same name. General Mills did this by making many new flavors of cereal under the already known Cheerios brand. In 1979, Honey Nut Cheerios was born. Not long after, other flavors started to appear on the shelves, such as Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Banana Nut Cheerios, and Fruity Cheerios. What do all of these newer products of Cheerios have in common? They are all high in sugar. General Mill’s is one of the many companies that makes new products with this

The Fruity Cheerios box is printed with statements like, “Made with real fruit juice,” and “25% less sugar.” If people look at the side of the box with the Nutrition Facts, they can see, printed in small font, that sugar is the second ingredient listed. In fact, just three-quarters of a cup of Fruity Cheerios contains nine grams of sugar. This sugar level is the same in Honey Nut Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, and Banana Nut Cheerios. Furthermore, most kids eat about two to three cups of cereal in the morning, which calculates to a consumption of about twenty-four to thirty-six grams of sugar every morning (Pirello). This is between one half and three quarters of the maximum daily sugar intake for a child, as recommended by the American Heart Association (Hutton). Therefore, the front of the box, which claims that the cereal is healthy, seems to contradict the Nutrition Fact side, which shows that these cereals are unhealthy. The original Cheerios has one gram of sugar per cup, which is eight percent the amount of sugar of other Cheerios brand