Professor Lesley Regan tackles the ever-challenging world of children’s products tonight, as she continues to conduct real-life experiments and employ her own inimitable brand of interrogation by putting products under the microscope – in order to get to the scientific truth behind gimmicks.

From cheese strings to educational toys, formula milk to classical CDs, Professor Regan attempts to wade through the litany of products that use parental guilt as a marketing ploy.

Firstly, she discovers that children’s meals – from snacks to lunchboxes – are much more complicated than they seem. Brightly packaged foods that sometimes look like they have style over substance really do live up to their health claims while other things that parents assume are healthy, such as a glass of juice, can have their disadvantages.

Professor Regan goes behind the scenes at Kellogg’s to quiz their top nutritionist about claims their cereal could improve children’s concentration at school, and puts her own brain under the microscope to discover if listening to Mozart can make children more intelligent (the Mozart effect).

She also looks at one of the biggest scientific marketing campaigns in history – the launch of formula milk – and investigates the health properties of breast versus formula milk.

Finally, Professor Regan challenges some of the world’s largest toy manufacturers, from Lego to the Early Learning Centre, to compete for the title of ultimate educational toy. Along the way, she discovers why a cardboard box can be an ideal learning tool and reveals why educational children’s laptops are not always as good as they seem.

Thursday 30 April
9.00-10.00pm BBC TWO