These packaged products are often promoted as healthy and key to supporting growth, but many of them contain added sugar, whereas the same products when sold in Western markets have no added sugar.

In the Philippines, the stakes are high obesity and diabetes on the rise, and experts warn that a new type of malnutrition is now emerging.

Sunjana Tiwari travelled there to find out more.

Jen is a new mum.

As a makeup artist, she travels all over the city, taking precious time away from Uno, her 10-month-old son.

Infant cereals make sense for busy, working mums like her.

If I need to make something from scratch, it takes double the amount of time.

But for Cerilac, an instant porridge mix, is a best-seller here by far, but some of these foods also contain added sugar.

They're widely available, sold on every street corner.

So this is what Filipinos call a sari-sari store.

It's a mom-and-pop shop or a convenience store and they sell everything here from canned goods to soft drinks and other daily essentials.

And it also sells baby food.

Now, this one comes in these small packets, meaning that parents can just buy one portion, but that also makes it more affordable.

Nestle, which makes Cerilac, says there's good reason for adding sugar to its products.

Micronutrient deficiency is widespread in the country. 97% of babies do not meet their daily nutrient requirement. 40% of babies, 0 to 5, suffer from iron deficiency anemia.

That means we fortify our products, but we also make sure that, you know, iron is metallic taste.

We also have DHA, which is a brain nutrient.

It's fishy, fishy taste.

So you can imagine, you have iron and you have DHA, how difficult it is to take the food.

Look at Nestle Cerilac today.

All, what one bowl of iron-fortified cereal with 20 vitamins and minerals can provide the baby.

I will say that categorically, this is one of the healthiest food, complementary food you can introduce to your baby.

Everything's sweet.

Even our cured meats are sweet.

Nutritionists say in the Philippines, many foods catering to a sweet palate are started early.

If a mother or a family introduces sweet complementary solids, then you set the baby up to prefer the attractive sweet taste of sugar.

Starting these babies so young on this level of sugar, it's mind-boggling.

The most popular flavor of Cerilac in the Philippines has about 17.5 grams of total sugars per serving.

That's the equivalent of more than four teaspoons of sugar.

But that can include both naturally occurring and added sugars.

Laws around labels don't require brands to distinguish between the two, so it's hard to know how much sugar has actually been added.

Nestle says its range also includes variants or flavors without added sugar.

All of our variants with added sugar are all way below the threshold of international and local guidelines.

Those international guidelines are set by CODEX, a commission jointly established by the two UN agencies, WHO and FAO.

But the WHO recommends that these standards be updated, with a particular focus on avoiding the addition of sugar and salt in children under three.

Another UN agency, UNICEF, points to more lax regulations in countries like the Philippines.

For its part, Nestle says it's listening to concerns about added sugar.

Wheat banana will already come with a no-added-sugar variant, and in the next two to three years we would have already eliminated all added sugar in our variants.

As concerns grow about the health of children, a commitment to eliminate sugar in baby food is a step in the right direction.

But the journey is likely to be long and complex, as parents try to give their babies the best start in life.

Suranjana Tiwari, BBC News, Manila.