Packaged food intake by British children aged 0 to 16 years g per kg body weight
International audience ; The European Union (EU) approach to assessing exposure to chemical migrants from plastic Food Contact Materials (FCMs) has been to assume an intake of 1 kg of food in contact with a particular material, per 60 kg person per day, which equates to 16.7 g/kg body weight. A food packaging surface area to food mass ratio of 6dm2/1kg is assumed, equivalent to 0.1dm2/kg of body weight. Children may be at increased risk to exposure from migrants as they have higher intakes of food per kg body weight compared with adults. In addition, much of the food marketed for/to children is in small portions and therefore the FCM area to food mass ratio is relatively high. To determine if, and how, the EU model might be modified to ensure specific protection against chemical migration into food marketed for children, data on 4-day food intakes of 297 children aged 0 to 6 years were collected including information on pack size, pack type and FCM area to food mass ratio. The 297 children consumed a total of 1,646 kg of food and drink (including tap water) of which 978 kg (59%) was packaged with 67% of this packaged in plastics. Mean intakes of food packaged in plastic ranged from 27g per kg body weight (for the infants under 1 year) to 51 g per kg body weight (for the 1-4 year olds). This was higher than the 16.7 g/kg body weight derived from the EU convention. The mean area of packaging in contact with the food consumed daily per kg body weight were 0.65 dm2/kg for the infants under one, 0,81 dm2/kg for the 1-4 year olds and 0.66 dm2/kg for the 4-6 year olds. All 297 children had intakes which exceeded 0.1dm2 of packaging per kg of body weight assumption.