Press reports which claimed Poole Hospital was recommending ‘junk food for babies’ were completely misleading, a hospital dietician has said.

Children’s dietician Sophie Puttock spoke to the Echo in depth following the media coverage of a leaflet issued by the hospital trust to some children.

Reports in national newspapers claimed that staff were recommending feeding crisps, chocolate bars and sweets to children who have problems managing lumpy foods.

But in fact the leaflets are given to a very small number of children “one a month if that” with severe eating problems – and the foods are designed to be learning tools, given in small amounts, to help them learn to manage different textures.

The brief leaflet, developed some years ago, recommends foods in different groups – for example Quavers as ‘bite and dissolve’ foods or Jaffa Cakes as ‘bite squash/suck’ finger foods.

Sophie said they had been chosen as they had the ‘perfect texture’ and it was not to do with their nutritional value.

“When the advice to people is to use Wotsits or Quavers it is one or two a day – not whole packets of Wotsits all day every day,” she said. “That out of a whole day is actually not very much. These children are very often not eating anything at all. This is very much a means to an end – it is a training tool to develop their oral skills to enable them to progress onto a normal healthy diet in the future. That is always what we are aiming for.”

She added: “To imagine that this is what we are saying to all children is wrong. Actually we always promote healthy eating. The children given this advice have specific needs and this is a way to move them on to a healthy diet. It has been very effective and helped lots of families.”

Sophie told the Echo the leaflet was given to some children over eight months who were failing to progress through the various stages of weaning, and needed to develop the oral skills needed to move on to a normal mixed diet. This was often for medical reasons including cerebral palsy, global developmental delay or children with heightened oral sensitivity.