8 Things Formula Companies Don't Want You to Know

by Katie Black

There are so many reasons why parents or caregivers opt for formula over breast milk, and at the end of the day, fed is best. Formula companies have been a staple in the world of infant nutrition for decades, giving parents another option or supplement to breastfeeding. And while in some situations formula can be a godsend, there are a lot of things that formula companies don't want you to know. Here’s just eight of them:

1. Formula is not as nutritious as breast milk:

Despite what formula companies want you to believe, formula is not the same as breast milk. Breast milk contains antibodies, enzymes, and other nutrients that cannot be replicated in formula. For example, breastfed infants absorb fat better than formula-fed infants due to lipase in human milk that is not present in cow milk. Formula-fed infants are more at risk for some infections and illnesses, and there’s evidence that formula may increase the risk of obesity later in life.

2. Formula companies use aggressive marketing strategies:

They spend millions each year on advertising and marketing campaigns designed to convince parents that formula is the better way to go. They aggressively target moms and pregnant women through social media, forums, and virtual support groups—but these ads are often in disguise by using influencers and content creators who don’t disclose they’re being paid to promote these products. In fact, commercial formula posts reach three times as many social media users as non commercial and informational posts about breastfeeding. Companies also send direct messages to women if they see they’ve posted questions or comments about breastfeeding online.

3. Formula companies have a history of spreading misinformation:

Not only do they advertise a LOT, formula companies have a history of spreading misinformation that preys on the fears and anxieties of parents to convince them that formula is equal in nutrition or even better than breast milk. They use false or incomplete scientific claims.

4. Formula companies target low income families and countries

Plus they target healthcare workers and families in low income countries. With wealthier countries having access to better breastfeeding education and the resources to breastfeed, formula companies make up for demand by looking elsewhere for customers. Not only does this discourage moms from breastfeeding even if they’re able to, this can lead them to use unsafe water to mix formula or thin it out to make it last longer. This can have serious health consequences for babies, not to mention the financial burden of formula for already struggling families.

5. Formula companies lobby against breastfeeding:

Formula companies have been known to lobby against policies that promote breastfeeding, such as laws that require employers to provide breastfeeding accommodations for employees. Even the UN confirms that the

“dairy and formula industries have established a network of trade associations that lobby against policy measures to protect breastfeeding or control the quality of infant formula.”

It’s in their best interest that people buy as much formula as possible, so they intentionally try to keep the number of breastfeeding parents as low as possible by blocking measures that would help them learn about breastfeeding and do it in friendlier workplaces.

6. Formula is unnecessarily expensive:

Anyone who uses formula knows it’s not cheap. The average amount a family in the US will spend per month exclusively formula feeding one baby ranges between $400 and $800 ($4800-$9600 per year). And with shortages, inflation, and dietary needs that require special brands, those numbers can go up even more.

Because only a handful of companies dominate the market, there’s little competition for lower prices. This means formula companies can charge as much as they can because they know parents have no choice but to purchase from them.

7. Formula companies harm the environment:

Making and moving infant formula uses a lot of fossil fuels and emits a lot of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. From the dairy industry, to the plastics involved, to the fact that the ingredients are brought in from all over the world with hefty transportation, to then sending it all back after assembly, it all has a big environmental price tag.

8. Formula companies don’t need FDA approval before being marketed:

Even though there are rules about nutritional content, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve infant formulas before they hit the market. And as for their current regulations and guidelines on manufacturing, when this was written, several of the official FDA’s website links don’t work.

And globally, many countries are bad at enforcing regulations, or have none at all.

Overall, while access to infant formula is absolutely needed, aggressive marketing, lobbying, and false information are not. It’s worrying how much control these companies have over infant nutrition on a global scale—we saw this with the formula shortage.

At the end of the day, what parents feed their babies hinges on a lot of factors unique to their needs. For some that looks like formula feeding, for others it's exclusively breastfeeding.

Finally, if you’d like to compare the nutrition of your own breast milk to formula, you can have your milk tested here.