Sugar tax must apply to sweets as well as drinks, say campaigners

The sugar tax should be extended to cover sweets, not just soft drinks, according to public health campaigners. The charity Action on Sugar said it wanted ministers to get tough on childhood obesity by forcing confectionery manufacturers to reduce the sugar in their products.

Chocolates and sweet confectionery account for 9% of all the sugar eaten by children aged between four and 10 and for 11% by those aged between 11 and 18.

The levy, which is due to come into force in the UK affecting heavily sugared fizzy drinks from next year, should also be applied to sweet treats sold in coffee shops and restaurants because those often contained a lot of sugar and calories, the campaign group said.

Under the new rules, producers or importers of soft drinks will have to pay a sugar tax of 18p per litre on drinks containing five grams or more of sugar per 100 millilitres and 24p per litre more if their products contain eight grams or more per 100 millilitres. The Treasury expects the levy to raise £520m a year.

“Action on Sugar is urging the next government to implement a mandatory sugar levy on all confectionery products that contain high levels of sugar to ensure maximum impact to help tackle the obesity and type 2 diabetes crisis,” said Graham McGregor, Action on Sugar’s chairman, who is professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London.

“The levy should be structured by the Treasury as per the soft drinks industry levy, whereby it is aimed at manufacturers to encourage them to reduce sugar in their overall product ranges. The next government needs to bring in tough measures to ensure compliance and put public health before the profits of the food industry.”

Dentists in Britain backed the move as a way of tackling tooth decay. “When the sugar levy is already showing that progress is possible, it makes no sense to draw an arbitrary line and ignore the likes of sweets or energy drinks that are so aggressively marketed at children,” said Mick Armstrong, chair of the British Dental Association. “Ministers keep giving the impression that it’s ‘mission accomplished’ on sugar controls. Dentists are confronting an epidemic of tooth decay and government must show it is prepared to go further on advertising, reformulation targets and through the tax system.”

A sugar tax on sweets had to be mandatory because “voluntary sugar reduction vis reformulation alone will not combat obesity”, said McGregor.

Conservative sources said they would not be extending the sugar tax. “Reducing childhood obesity is vital, and we’re pleased that Public Health England says that our plan to address it is the most ambitious in the world,” a source said.

The Food and Drink Federation, which represents manufacturers, recently warned that the 20% cut in sugar content of most types of foodstuffs being sought by Public Health England by 2020 was highly unlikely to happen because it would not be “technically possible, or acceptable to UK consumers”.

Sugar tax must apply to sweets as well as drinks, say campaigners

First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows

The first sugar tax to be introduced on soft drinks in the United States to fight obesity has cut sales by nearly 10% and apparently increased the numbers of people buying water instead, a study has shown.

Berkeley, California, introduced a substantial tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on 1 March 2015. At the rate of 10% – or one penny per fluid ounce – it adds 12 cents to a 12 ounce can of soda priced at $ 1, or 68 cents to a two litre bottle costing just over $ 2 before the tax.

Experts hope that sugar taxes will hike the prices of unhealthy drinks and reduce the number of people who consume large quantities of them. Sugar-sweetened drinks are known to be a significant contributor to obesity, particularly in children and young people.

But taxes have only been introduced after battles with the industry. The latest tax to be introduced – in Philadelphia, in January, where unlike Berkeley incomes are low and obesity rates high – is still being challenged in the courts.

Berkeley is unlike most cities in America, with far higher levels of wealth and education and low consumption of colas and other sugary drinks. Yet Barry Popkin of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and Lynn Silver from the Public Health Institute found that, even there, the tax had changed people’s behaviour.

“This surprised me,” Popkin told the Guardian. “I didn’t think we’d get much effect at all.” The debate around obesity and the sugar tax had already brought consumption down in Berkeley – and yet the introduction of the tax appears to have brought it down further.

One year after the introduction of the tax, their paper in the journal Plos Medicine shows that sales of sugary drinks in Berkeley fell by 9.6%, while sales in surrounding areas with no tax rose by 6.9%.

While the academics cannot prove that consumers bought water instead, bottled water sales in Berkeley increased by 15.6% after the introduction of the tax. Sales of other non-taxed drinks such as unsweetened teas, milk and fruit juices also rose. But diet drinks and energy drinks appeared not to be so popular – those declined by 9.2%.

Shopkeepers did not lose out because the average grocery bill remained the same. The authors of the study suggest it is possible that consumers are shifting away from sugary drinks to healthier ones – and without causing undue economic hardship because spending did not drop.

In the first year, the tax was levied only in the chain supermarkets and chain petrol stations, so there is still scope for a bigger effect when independent and small shops also bring it in. The money raised is going to child health programmes.

Popkin expects the impact of the tax to be far greater in Philadelphia, where it has been set higher, at 15%, and where incomes are some of the lowest in the USA and consumption of sugary drinks and obesity are high. Proceeds from the tax are going to pay for much needed daycare centres for children. “That was how they sold it,” said Popkin. “The revenue has been double what they expected. Daycare centres have doubled and tripled in size.”

The battle for sugar taxes has not yet been won in the USA, he said. “The industry is still fighting tooth and nail. We have reached a turning point, but the industry is still fighting. They are fighting desperately in Philadelphia because it is a low-income and very high-purchasing city. The implications are quite profound.”

The American Heart Association praised study and the sugar tax.

Its CEO, Nancy Brown said: “This study adds to the compelling evidence that simply cannot be ignored. The residents of Berkeley, who voted for a sugary drink tax in their community, are now seeing the benefits of significantly reduced consumption of sugary drinks, significantly increased consumption of water and consumers are switching to healthier drinks.

“Additionally, Berkeley small businesses have not seen a drop in overall sales. This positive impact is magnified by the fact that the revenue from the tax is being invested in health and wellness across the city.”

But the American Beverage Association said: “This study acknowledges that taxes do not demonstrate a meaningful reduction in obesity rates. A beverage tax that increases the price on certain beverages by more than 50 percent only yields a reduction of 6.4 calories per day.

“America’s beverage companies know we must play a role in improving public health, which is why we are taking aggressive actions to help people reduce the sugar and calories they get from beverages.”

First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows

I"ve had to remove all of a toddler"s teeth. It"s time for a war on sugar

It is the end of an afternoon in theatre and I have extracted more than 100 teeth from my operating list of eight patients, the youngest a two-year-old who needed all 20 baby teeth removing because they were so decayed. I watch in silence as a child younger than my own is transferred from the operating table and I wonder how we reached this point as a society where I don’t believe we truly value oral health, nor realise the implications of failing to do so.

Nearly 20 years after observing my first general anaesthetic as a student it doesn’t get any easier. I regularly see parents overcome by guilt and emotion as they watch their child being put to sleep, or recovering dazed and confused in the recovery suite. Sometimes after a busy afternoon I sit in the theatre and wonder if there is more I can do, sometimes I have nothing left to give.

Responsibility for oral health promotion has been devolved to cash-strapped local authorities

As an NHS consultant in paediatric dentistry, it sadly comes as no surprise to me that removal of decayed teeth remains the most common reason for a child aged five to nine years to be admitted to a hospital in England. In these straitened times, it seems so wrong that every year we spend around £35m on operations to treat a disease that is almost always preventable.

The frustration is that the solutions are already out there. Ten years ago, the Scottish government agreed to invest in a programme of oral health prevention called Childsmile. Now every child in Scotland has access to free daily supervised toothbrushing in nursery and free dental packs to support toothbrushing at home. Dental registration is encouraged and those communities and individuals who are higher risk have more support. The result? Scotland is reducing the millions of pounds it spends on general anaesthetics and turning around the oral health of its children, for the princely sum of £17 per child per year.

Wales has a similar Designed to Smile programme but in England, responsibility for oral health promotion has been devolved to cash-strapped local authorities. This means that it is a postcode lottery with some excellent programmes, such as Teeth Team in Hull, while in other areas existing services are being decommissioned.

England needs urgent investment in oral health prevention. It is actually more cost effective to prevent, rather than treat, dental disease but more importantly we could be preventing tens of thousands of young children, and their families, from potentially experiencing pain, swelling and sleepless nights and time away from school or work.

Every child has a right to good oral health yet still we see one in eight three-year-old children with obvious signs of decay. We need a more radical approach to reduce the persistent inequalities in oral health, which are immoral in this day and age. We need more compassion, an accelerated programme of product reformation so that the sugar content is reduced, and a war on marketing of high sugar products aimed at children.

Two years ago after a particularly frustrating consultation with a parent whose child’s diet was limited to Ribena and biscuits, I decided to begin writing a blog as a way of delivering practical information. I have reached many more families than I would in my day job, but I still feel as though I am wading in a sea of untreated decay. Education is important but it forms only part of the solution. It is too simplistic, and frankly unhelpful, to apportion all blame to the parents. Yes, as parents we have responsibilities and a vital role to play – but we could all be more proactive when it comes to children’s oral health.

I am delighted at the growing number of organisations that are now beginning to collaborate with myself and colleagues via the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry. Health visitors can and are encouraging a dental check before a baby’s first birthday; sports and education settings can lead by example, adopting low-sugar menus and refusing to place sugary drinks in their vending machines; and communities should campaign for water fluoridation. Above all, we need strong, visible leadership by local and national government that says, “This is not acceptable and we are going to do something about it”. Children’s oral health should be everyone’s business.

If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com.

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I"ve had to remove all of a toddler"s teeth. It"s time for a war on sugar

11 Warning Signs You’re Eating Too Much Sugar

11 Warning Signs You’re Eating Too Much Sugar

For children’s health, the government has to treat sugar like cigarettes | Gary Taubes

Let us not get out hopes up. Public Health England is in a very difficult position. Faced with unprecedented levels of obesity and diabetes, with a nation that keeps getting fatter and sicker, the agency clearly has to act. The obesity and diabetes epidemics represent a “slow-motion disaster,” as Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organisation, phrased it. So inaction is unacceptable.

Yet virtually everything PHE does now is likely to be either too little – unlikely to have any meaningful effect on the prevalence of obesity and diabetes – or too much, in that the industries that may indeed be responsible for the problem are likely to fight it. While the Treasury develops a levy for sugary soft drinks, PHE hopes to induce the producers of sugary foods to reduce the sugar in their products by 20%. If they can reformulate the product, all the better. If not, they should shrink the size of the product itself.

Commendable as PHE’s initiative is, reasons to be pessimistic abound. The programme is based on the idea that sugar does its damage to the body and to children merely through the calories it contains. As such there’s nothing particularly unique – either toxic or addictive – about sugar, as I and others have been arguing. We just consume too much of it.

Guidelines say children should have a maximum of 24-30g of sugar per day – a third of what they’re actually consuming

On the one hand, it’s hard to win a legal battle with an industry when the best you can argue is that we like their products a little too much for our own good. Some rigorous research targeted at answering the question of whether sugar has toxic qualities independent of its calories would help enormously here, even if it took years to complete.

On the other hand is the simple question of how much we can expect a 20% reduction in sugar to help. Will it curb the epidemics? Avert the slow-motion disaster? PHE predicts that this voluntary sugar reduction program will result in 200,000 fewer tonnes of sugar consumed in 2020 than are consumed today, and so 20% fewer overweight children as well. As Ernest Hemingway’s Jake Barnes might have put it in The Sun Also Rises, “isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Even if a 20% reduction in sugar consumption is achieved in three years (and that alone may be unprecedented) it pales in comparison to what health officials imply is necessary to get children eating healthier. UK guidelines now suggest that children should be consuming a maximum of 24-30g of sugar per day – six to seven sugar cubes. Even less for kids under six. According to a recent PHE survey, that’s one-third of what they’re actually consuming (much of which apparently comes in the morning as part of what their parents think of as a healthy breakfast).

So now, assuming industry goes along with this voluntary programme, and assuming that kids don’t respond to smaller portions or sugar-reduced formulations by eating more, both of which are possible, what’s the chance that we’ll see a significant curbing of the epidemics, even if the 20% goal is reached?

Let’s use cigarettes and lung cancer as our pedagogical example, confident, as we are, that cigarettes cause lung cancer. Cigarette consumption in the UK peaked in the mid-1970s when half of all men smoked and over 40% of women. Together they averaged 17 cigarettes a day. Now let’s imagine that we didn’t get those smokers to quit, but we managed to cut their consumption by 20%. Instead of 17 cigarettes a day, they’re averaging 14.

Would we expect to see a decrease in lung cancer prevalence? Would we expect that the lung cancer epidemic would be curbed at all, let alone within a few years of peak consumption? I would wager that even the PHE authorities would acknowledge that such a change would have little effect. Reasons here, too, would abound. Among them that it takes lung cancer risk 20 years to return to baseline after the smoker quits. So these 14-a-day smokers would still be at high risk, albeit perhaps not quite as high.

Indeed, in the US, per capita smoking began to decline in the mid-1960s, immediately after the surgeon general’s landmark Report on Smoking and Health. Lung cancer rates stopped rising only 30 years later. By then, per capita consumption had dropped by almost 50%. More importantly, when it comes to cigarettes, public health authorities don’t target the number of cigarettes smoked, but the number of smokers. Cut that number significantly, as we did, and lung cancer rates fall.

We see an overweight child with a chocolate bar and our tendency is to think that the chocolate bar is the proximate cause. Get rid of that chocolate bar, or shrink it in size, and we have a child who never gets overweight to begin with. But these epidemics of obesity and diabetes have been in the works since the late 19th century, cooking along, quite likely passed down from sugar-eating mothers to their children even in the womb. If so, our kids are getting fatter not just because they’re eating sugar, but because they’re programmed – epigenetically, in the scientific lingo – before they’re even born.

This epidemic has deep roots and may require drastic action to curb. That PHE is acting is admirable. But maybe we should treat this like cigarettes: aim to curb the number of sugar consumers, rather than the amount of sugar they consume. It will still take time to see an effect, but the odds of success will rise.

For children’s health, the government has to treat sugar like cigarettes | Gary Taubes

10 Herbs That Lower Blood Sugar Naturally

10 Herbs That Lower Blood Sugar Naturally

Nestlé to remove 10% of sugar from all snacks in UK and Ireland by 2018

Nestlé, one of the world’s biggest chocolate manufacturers, will take 10% of the sugar out of its confectionery in the UK and Ireland by 2018.

The corporation says the cut is from the levels existing in its sugary products in 2015 and will amount to about 7,500 tonnes. It makes several well-known brands, including Aero, Dairy Box, Drifter, KitKat, Lion, Milkybar, Munchies, Polo, Quality Street, Rolo, Smarties, Toffee Crisp, Walnut Whip and Yorkie.

The announcement follows public concern over the quantity of sugar in the country’s diet and its contribution to rising obesity levels. The threat of a sugar levy on soft drinks has encouraged the reformulation of Irn Bru and Lucozade, which will escape the tax, although there have been no such moves by PepsiCo or Coca-Cola. There is no proposed tax on sugar in food, but the government has hinted it might come if the country’s sugar intake is not reduced.

Nestlé says it will not use artificial sweeteners in its confectionery. Instead it plans to replace sugar with higher quantities of existing ingredients or other, non-artificial ingredients and ensuring products are below a certain amount of calories.

Reduced sizes are likely to be one of the options, and it is possible that a certain amount of sugar can be taken out without affecting the taste much.

“The 10% reduction is not a case of a straight swap of sugar for another ingredient – it will be achieved in a number of different ways so that we can make sure that the taste is as good or better from product to product,” a spokesperson said.

“We are not announcing specific changes to brands at this stage but over the coming months and years we will introduce revised products that make incremental reductions on sugar in different ways that, when added up, make a big difference overall to the nation’s diet while still maintaining taste.”

In November, Nestlé announced it had made a key breakthrough in food science that would allow it to reduce sugar by up to 40%. It claimed its scientists had found a way to “structure sugar differently”.

In the latest announcement, Fiona Kendrick chair and chief executive of Nestlé UK and Ireland, suggested this technological shift would be part of the answer.

“These innovations will help us to reduce sugar in confectionery when they are combined with other, more common methods like reformulating recipes and swapping sugar for other non-artificial ingredients,” she said.

Public Health England, which is charged with encouraging companies to reformulate their products, welcomed the announcement.

“Nestlé is the latest household name to commit to making everyday products healthier and we’re delighted this is just the start of its efforts,” said Duncan Selbie, PHE’s chief executive.

“This sends a clear message that reducing sugar in food is possible, even in products that are typically harder to reformulate.”

Nestlé to remove 10% of sugar from all snacks in UK and Ireland by 2018

Doctors don’t have to sugar the obesity pill | Barbara Ellen

A lot gets said about how it feels to be overweight, but what is the psychology of having to tell someone that they’re fat if you’re a health professional? Does it feel rude, abrasive, maybe even counter-productive to do so? But perhaps neglectful and harmful not to? A survey of 1,141 GPs by Pulse magazine found that almost one third (32%) of them said that patients became offended and resentful when their excess weight was pointed out.

Of course, there are GPs who feel that “political correctness” has no place in medicine and patients should just be told the truth, however it goes down. But for other GPs, the issue is more complicated. Some wonder whether they should bring the topic up at all, even when the problem is something like knee pain, which could be exacerbated by weight. They feel that to do so would only upset the patient and have a negative impact on their ongoing relationship.

Others believe that some patients are avoiding GPs because they don’t wish to feel pressured about their weight – although the patient is frequently more upset about being overweight than by the discussion.

At this point, some might say, what’s the problem? Britain has an obesity epidemic, and if weight contributes to an individual’s health problems, it should be part of the health advice. At the moment, the NHS approach is to offer all obese patients free places in slimming clubs, and when patients are being spoken to about their weight, there are guidelines suggesting that “the tone and content of all communications is respectful and non-judgmental”. Certainly, there are compelling arguments for telling patients that they’re obese – such as helping them to avoid unnecessary medical interventions.

This last one clinched it for me – a few seconds of tension is surely better than the patient undergoing unnecessary treatment. However, like many of these more sensitive GPs, I’m loath to go along with any narrative that tries to caricature overweight people as thin-skinned children throwing tantrums.

Weight isn’t just physiological, it’s emotional. Someone talking to you about it, while probably not a revelation, would still be painful. Moreover, in Britain today, it’s improbable that any fat person is getting away with living in denial.

Only this week, there was a case where a woman wearing heels fell down nightclub steps, and the judge ruled that she had no case because she was drunk and obese. Fair enough about the alcohol, but what did the woman’s weight have to do with anything? Heels or not, if excess pounds made people fall over more readily, then western civilisation would be full of images of overweight citizens rolling about on pavements like upturned human beetles.

Nor is this behaviour confined to courtrooms – increasingly, casual fat-shaming has become normalised. Which perhaps sheds light on why some GPs instinctively feel that they need to be cautious. Far from the patient being oblivious about their weight, they’re living in a world which, one way or another, never stops pointing it out. Instead of having too little insight into their weight problem, they’re likely to have become over-sensitised.

For these people, a GP surgery may feel like a sanctuary compared to the outside world, so to have their weight mentioned there may be momentarily jarring. Framed this way, the fact that two thirds of GPs aren’t encountering offended patients is a pretty good result. However, that still leaves the farcical situation where obese people are constantly told about their weight by everyone apart from the only people who need to mention it – namely health professionals. While something has gone very wrong here, the blame doesn’t lie with sensitive GPs.

Farage made a demon of himself

Do you want to drink in a pub with this man? Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage is upset because he feels that he’s been “demonised” by the British media, to the point where he’s living like a “virtual prisoner” and is “frightened” to leave the house. Does this explain why Farage has been taking so many hols in America recently – at that well-known international leisure destination, Camp Trump?

As for Farage being “demonised” by the British media, could you excuse me a moment while I go hunting on the internet for the world’s tiniest violin? Nope, sorry, it’s going to have to be tinier than that.

I suppose that some could make a compelling argument for Farage being demonised. However, it doesn’t end there. Farage has also been promoted and feted, far beyond the size and political standing Ukip ever merited. Along the way, he was also reinvented, as a voice-of-the-people folk hero – an entertaining turn, someone you could “have a pint at the pub with”. To which, all I can say is: in all my years of going to pubs, I’ve never been that thirsty.

Which, of course, is just my personal opinion of a man who has always reminded me strongly of a malevolent sock puppet, conjured into life by some demented anti-EU Geppetto, and dressed as though permanently in lickspittle-hope of being invited to a grouse shoot at a grand house in 1953. But I digress.

The point is that, like Boris Johnson before him, Farage has enjoyed quite the “amusing British character” makeover – one which he continues to struggle to deserve in this tumultuous post-Brexit climate.

Indeed, while Farage might claim that he has been demonised, others might say that he and his views have been over-publicised, not to mention assimilated and normalised, to an absurd and dangerous degree.

We should call an amnesty on this shameful chapter

Britain’s smallest library, run by the Brockley Society in London. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

A startling 25 million British library books are estimated to be overdue. At the close of 2016, libraries had around 50 million books, which was 25 million fewer than they had in 1996. It has only now been discovered because cuts mean that there aren’t enough librarians to carry out proper stocktaking.

That’s an awful lot of unreturned Terry Pratchett and Hilary Mantel. If Britain continues to lose books at this rate, by the end of the century all that will be left is a Ruth Rendell with the last chapter missing and a DVD of In The Night Garden.

Perhaps even as I write this, some people are staring shamefacedly at bookshelves holding tomes encased in incriminating plastic book coversdust jackets, thinking: “Why didn’t I take that Dan Brown book back? And why did I take it out in the first place?”

But enough of recriminations. This national unreturned library book conundrum seems to resurface periodically. Clearly, people are frightened about incurring gigantic fines. Surely there could be a designated period of library-amnesty for returning overdue books? For a limited period only, no penalty at all … unless you’re returning the Dan Browns?

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Doctors don’t have to sugar the obesity pill | Barbara Ellen

Children"s sugar intake equals five doughnuts a day, campaigners say

Children and young people are consuming the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip biscuits a day in sugar, according to anti-obesity campaigners.

The calculations by the Obesity Health Alliance have led to renewed calls for food and soft drinks manufacturers to make their products healthier to cut the number of dangerously overweight children. They want urgent action to reduce the amount of “hidden” sugar in many common foodstuffs.

“Most parents would never hand over 20 chocolate biscuits a day to their children, but with so much hidden sugar in our food and drink it can often be hard to know just how much children are consuming,” said Dr Modi Mwatsama, a spokesman for the alliance.

It is urging food firms to replicate the reduction in the amount of salt they put into their products in the 2000s.

Children and young people aged between 11 and 18 typically have an intake of 73.2 grams of sugar a day, far in excess of the 30g – or seven teaspoons – maximum recommended in official health advice, according to the OHA’s estimates. Those 73.2g are the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip or custard cream biscuits, 14.6 jelly babies, 5.4 slices of Victoria sponge cake or 4.8 jam-filled doughnuts.

The alliance’s figures are based on its analysis of Public Health England and the Food Standards Agency’s most recent national diet and nutrition survey, an annual study of what a representative sample of the population is eating and drinking, published last September.

It also found that four- to 10-year-olds are consuming 53.5g of sugar a day, while the figure among 19- to 64-year-olds is 59.9g daily.

Dr Alison Tedstone, Public Health England’s chief nutritionist, said that while some food manufacturers have pledged to cut the amount of sugar in their products, certain kinds of retailers – including coffee chains – need to follow suit.

“Some big industry players have taken positive early steps, but it’s the big coffee shops, pubs and restaurants we need to do the same,” she said.

Producers including Tesco, Waitrose, Nestlé, Lucozade, Ribena and Kellogg’s have announced plans to reduce their use of sugar as part of a reformulation drive ahead of the government’s sugar tax coming into force in 2018. However, many other firms have made no such commitment and may be hit by the tax.

PHE wants all food manufacturers and outlets to strip 20% of all sugar out of a wide range of products by 2020. It plans to issue a report sometime next month setting out in detail for the first time what types of foods contribute the most to people’s sugar intake and where they buy and consume them.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, said that overweight or obese children are much more likely to be dangerously overweight in adulthood and thus increase their risk of developing 11 forms of cancer.

Children"s sugar intake equals five doughnuts a day, campaigners say

Mexico"s sugar tax leads to fall in consumption for second year running

Mexico’s sugar tax appears to be having a significant impact for the second year running in changing the habits of a nation famous for its love of Coca-Cola, and will encourage countries troubled by obesity and contemplating a tax of their own.

An analysis of sugary-drink purchases, carried out by academics in Mexico and the United States, has found that the 5.5% drop in the first year after the tax was introduced was followed by a 9.7% decline in the second year, averaging 7.6% over the two-year period.

Mexico has high rates of obesity – more than 70% of the population is overweight or obese – and sugar consumption. More than 70% of the added sugar in the diet comes from sugar-sweetened drinks. Coca-Cola is particularly popular and holds a place in the national culture, while former president Vicente Fox was the regional head of the company.

Health experts worldwide have been watching the progress of the Mexican tax closely because it could potentially lower the rates of obesity-related diseases and type 2 diabetes in a country with a population of more than 122 million.

The scientists cannot yet calculate the effect on health. But they write in the journal Health Affairs: “These reductions in consumption could have positive impacts on health outcomes and reductions in healthcare expenses in Mexico.”

The Mexican tax, if successful, may pave the way for taxes in other countries. “At the global level, findings on the sustained impact over two years of taxes on the beverages in Mexico may encourage other countries to use fiscal policies to reduce the consumption of unhealthy beverages … to reduce the burden of chronic diseases,” they say.

Mexico is a nation famous for its love of Coca-Cola.
Photograph: Alamy

The study has been carried out by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (National Institute of Public Health). They found that the tax, which is just 1 peso (4p) per litre of sugary drink, had its biggest impact on the poorest households, where the decline in purchases was 18.8ml per person per day in 2014 and 29.3ml in 2015.

Purchases of other untaxed drinks went up on average by 2% over the two years, although the second year showed a decline. There is evidence from other data, however, of an increase in the production of still bottled water two years after the tax began, which the authors say may suggest some consumers are turning to water instead.

“Overall the results from our study contradict industry reports of a decline in the effect of the tax after the first year of its implementation. We found a greater reduction in purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages in 2015 than in 2014. Moreover, both the absolute and relative reductions were highest among households at lower socioeconomic levels,” said the paper.

Barry Popkin, distinguished professor in the department of nutrition at Gillings and one of the authors, looked forward to collecting data on the health impact. “It will be important for us to continue to monitor this tax and see how this actually will affect overall diets, diabetes prevalence and other biological markers of the many noncommunicable diseases linked with excessive sugary beverage consumption,” he said.

Adam Briggs, of the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, said the results of the study were “really encouraging, particularly from a UK perspective where the sugar-sweetened beverages levy is due to be introduced in just 12 months’ time.

“These are very important data for policymakers considering implementing soft drink taxes and it will be fascinating to see how sales continue over time … measuring independent health outcomes of such isolated policies is really challenging but, as the authors say, these reductions in consumption would likely have important population-level health benefits in terms of diabetes and obesity-related diseases.”

The UK planned levy is different to the Mexican tax in its design and structure, he said. “However, the principle that price change leads to sustained behaviour change remains important.”

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: “Given their fervent belief in the principle of taxing soft drinks we should at least be encouraged that the authors accept causality cannot be established in terms of the impact of the tax in Mexico and the claimed falls in consumption. Nevertheless, while it seems obvious that price can have an impact on sales levels, it is far from clear that the tax on soft drinks in Mexico has had any impact on levels on obesity.”

Sugar tax graphic

A new report from Euromonitor International said that 19 countries had so far introduced what it called “sin taxes” on food and drinks and more would do so in the near future, with the aim of reducing sugar consumption by 20% in line with guidance from the World Health Organisation.

Euromonitor suggested the Mexican tax may be too low to have the desired effect and that the higher tax of 33 US cents per litre introduced in Berkeley, California, has been a bigger success. Berkeley “is said to have reduced SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption by 21% and increased water consumption by 63%. In comparison, other cities in the US reported a 4% increase in SSB consumption, and only 19% increase in water consumption in that time,” said the report.

It pointed to countries that might want to introduce “sin taxes” in the near future. “According to the NHS in the UK, consumers should not exceed more than 70g of fat and have no more than 90g of total sugar a day. Euromonitor’s Passport Nutrition data shows that 37 of the 54 (69%) researched countries exceed the fat intake recommendation, and 38 (70%) exceed the sugar recommendation. The top three sugar consumers are Chile, the Netherlands and Belgium, while the top three fat consumers are Germany, Sweden and Austria,” it said.

Mexico"s sugar tax leads to fall in consumption for second year running

10 Harmful Health Effects Caused by Excessive Sugar Consumption

Foods taste sweet because they contain sugars which can be naturally occurring or added. What’s the main difference between the two?

Naturally occurring sugars are the sugars found in whole foods, for instance, fruit, milk, vegetables, and some grains. Fructose and lactose in fruit and milk products, respectively, are naturally occurring sugars. On the other hand, sugars and syrups added to foods during preparation or processing, or added at the table are known as added sugars.

Added sugars function to enhance the flavor and texture of foods, to increase shelf life, and to make the foods palatable.

Americans consume at the average of 22 teaspoons of added sugars every day which is equivalent to 88 g of sugar or nearly 352 calories. The major sources of added sugars are regular sodas, cakes, candy, pies, cookies, energy drinks, and fruit drinks (fruit ade and fruit punch); dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened milk and yogurt); and other grains (cinnamon toast, granola bar, and honey-nut waffles).

No matter what types of sugars are used, whether they are the natural sweetener like honey or raw sugar, a refined product like table sugar, or manufactured sugar like high-fructose corn syrup, all added sugars can pose health risks. Added sugar, especially taken in excess, can have harmful effects on metabolism and contribute to the development of many diseases.

The followings are 10 disturbing reasons why added sugars are considered detrimental to health.

Empty Calories and Tooth Decay

As you have probably heard many times before, added sugars like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) only provide you calories without the essential nutrients, for which they are called empty calories.  They are purely energy source and lacking proteins, essential fats, vitamin or minerals.

Eating sugars that make up 10-20 percent of calories or more can pose health issues besides contributing to nutrient deficiencies.

Acting as digestible energy sources that help to feed harmful bacteria in the mouth, sugars cause tooth decay.

Overloads You Liver

In order to understand why excessive added sugar intakes are harmful, it would be better for you to understand what they are made of.

Sugars are composed of equal parts of glucose and fructose. In the digestive tract, sugars are broken down into two simple sugars, glucose and fructose, before entering the bloodstream.

Glucose is found in and metabolized by every cell in your body. Conversely, fructose is only available for the body from your diet and solely metabolized by the liver.

Eating moderate amounts of fructose such as from fruit in a healthy person or you just finished an exercise won’t pose harmful effects as it will be turned into glycogen and subsequently stored in your liver. By contrast, eating a lot of fructose will overload the liver if the liver is full of glycogen, forcing the organ to turn the fructose into fat.

When large amounts of sugar taken repeatedly, this process will eventually lead to fatty liver and metabolic syndrome.

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Taking excess fructose can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which in the end can lodge in the liver. After turned into fat in the liver, fructose is shipped out as VLDL cholesterol particles. However, some of the fats stay behind and can lodge in the liver.

This eventually leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is strongly associated with metabolic diseases. Studies have found that people with fatty liver consume up to 2-3 times as much fructose as the average person.

Insulin Resistance

Insulin, a very important hormone in the body, through a cascade of reactions that allows glucose (blood sugar) to enter cells from the bloodstream by the help of GLUT4 transporters and tells the cells to start burning glucose instead of fat.

However, taking too much sugar may overload the blood with glucose over time which is highly toxic and can cause complications in diabetes, including neuropathy and blindness.

The higher glucose in the blood the higher insulin are produced and secreted by the pancreas. As cells only allow the entrance certain amount of glucose for its optimal energy generating activities, too much insulin will eventually make the cells resist the docking of extra insulin to their receptors. This leads to, insulin resistance, meaning cells (insulin receptors) repel insulin.

Many studies have found that high sugar consumption is associated with insulin resistance which is thought to be a leading cause of many diseases, including metabolic syndrome, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and type II diabetes.

Type II Diabetes

Chronically high blood glucose (hyperglycemia) and insulin resistance cause the pancreas to produce higher levels of insulin that result in high insulin levels in your blood (hyperinsulinemia).

As insulin resistance becomes progressively worse, the pancreas that produces insulin at high capacity eventually becomes exhausted which cause the pancreas to produce less insulin, thus make the blood glucose levels remains high. This condition is diagnosed with type II diabetes.

Given that excess sugar intake can cause insulin resistant, it is no big wonder to see that people who excessively drink sugar-sweetened beverages have a higher risk of Type II diabetes.

Cancer

Scientists believe that insulin and IGF-1 play some roles as important growth factors, via a cascade of reactions that enhance tumor cell proliferation. By that, they also believe that hyperinsulinemia (constantly elevated insulin levels, a consequent of excess sugar consumption) can contribute to cancer.

Moreover, the metabolic issues associated with excess sugar consumption are a known factor of inflammation which is due to elevated free radical levels, another potential cause of cancer. Many studies have shown that people who consume a lot of sugar are at a much higher risk of cancer.

Although fructose and glucose have the same calorific value, in the body, the two sugars are metabolized differently. Fructose is thought to cause seven times as much cell damage as does glucose because it binds to cellular proteins seven times faster. In addition, it releases 100 times the number of reactive oxygen species such as hydrogen peroxide, which kills everything in sight.

Fat-Promoting Effects

Not all foods are created equal as different foods can have different effects on our brains and the hormones that control food intake.

Studies show that fructose doesn’t have the similar satiety effect as glucose. In one study, participants were asked to drink either a fructose-sweetened drink or a glucose-sweetened drink. Afterward, the fructose drinkers were found to have much less activity in the satiety centers of the brain and felt hungrier.

Another study has shown that fructose didn’t lower the hunger hormone ghrelin nearly as much as glucose did. As the calories from fructose in HFCS aren’t as fulfilling, this can translate into an increased sugar intake, thus increased calorie intake.

Highly Addictive

Similar to street drugs, sugar causes a release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain. Therefore, many people are susceptible to its addictive potential.

Exposures to sugar and many junk foods can cause massive dopamine release, much more than we compared to that of foods found in nature, thereby people who are susceptible to addiction can become strongly addicted to sugar and other junk foods.

The best advice for those addicted to sugary foods is not ‘take them in moderation’, as the workable solution to addiction is abstinence.

Obesity

The way sugar affects hormones and the brain is a recipe for disastrous fat gain that leads to decreased satiety and can get people addicted that results in you losing control over food consumption.

Many studies have shown a strong statistical association between sugar consumption and obesity. This applies to all age groups.

Raises Cholesterol (Oxysterol)

There is mounting evidence that sugar, not fat, can be one of the leading causes of heart disease via the harmful effects of fructose that lead to metabolic problems.

Excessive fructose intake (consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages) is associated with all major risk factors for heart disease, including raised triglycerides, small, dense LDL and oxidized LDL (due to oxidized cholesterol, also known as oxysterol, which is caused by elevated free radical levels), raise blood glucose and insulin levels and increased abdominal obesity that can happen as little as 10 weeks.

Furthermore, many observational studies have shown a strong statistical association between sugar consumption and the risk of heart disease.

10 Harmful Health Effects Caused by Excessive Sugar Consumption

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Child "sugar scourge": thousands having teeth removed in hospital

More than 40,000 children and young people a year are having rotten teeth removed in hospital in further evidence of what doctors call the “costly scourge of sugar”.

New NHS figures obtained by the Local Government Association (LGA) show that 40,800 under-18s in England had at least one tooth taken out last year under general anaesthetic because of decay. Performing the procedures cost £35.6m.

The children involved had such advanced decay that they could not be treated by a dentist and had to go to hospital instead. NHS surgeons carried out 161 such operations each working day.

“These figures are a stark reminder of the damage excessive sugar consumption is doing to our children’s teeth,” said councillor Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board.

“It is deeply worrying that the type of dental treatment required is beyond the capacity of a local dentist, due to the severity of the tooth decay, and as a result has to be done in hospital,” she added.

The 161 operations a day should serve as “a wake-up call” to ministers to introduce tougher curbs on sugar, not just the planned levy on sugary soft drinks, said Prof Nigel Hunt, the dean of the faculty of dental surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons.

“The awful impact sugar is having on our children’s teeth is brutally evident in the number of under-18s we are seeing daily that need more than one tooth extracted due to tooth decay. It is shameful that a problem which is 90% preventable continues to plague our children in this way,” Hunt said.

“Having teeth removed can be very traumatising for children and requires time away from school for them, as well as time away from work for their parents.

“The government’s sugar tax will go some way to cutting sugar consumption that leads to tooth decay, but it also needs to support public health campaigns that remind parents of good oral health,” Hunt added.

The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, wants ministers to let it help decide how proceeds from the sugar tax should be spent.

Child "sugar scourge": thousands having teeth removed in hospital

Children consume half of daily sugar quota at breakfast – study

Children in England consume half their recommended maximum daily intake of sugar at breakfast, and by the end of the day have had more than three times the healthy limit, according to research from Public Health England (PHE).

The study, based on the annual National Diet and Nutrition Survey, found that on average children have the equivalent of three cubes – about 11g – of sugar before they go to school, mainly in sugary cereals, drinks and spreads. Despite this, researchers found that eight out of 10 parents believed their children’s breakfast was healthy.

PHE is launching a campaign to raise awareness of health problems linked to excessive sugar intake. It has developed an app that allows people to scan products’ barcodes to see how much sugar, saturated fat and salt they contain.

“Children have far too much sugar, and a lot of it is before their first lesson of the day,” said Alison Tedstone, PHE’s chief nutritionist. “It’s crucial for children to have a healthy breakfast, but we know the mornings in a busy household can be fraught. That’s why we’ve developed our Be Food Smart app, taking some of the pressure off parents and helping them to choose healthier food and drink options for their children.”

The recommended maximum daily sugar intake for four- to six-year-olds is five cubes of sugar, and for seven- to 10-year-olds it is six cubes.

The PHE study based on a representative survey of 1,000 people found that children under 10 consumed on average more than three times those quantities.

Sara Stanner, science director at the British Nutrition Foundation, said: “When analysing a number of breakfasts from families across England, we were concerned to see the high amount of free sugars and low amount of fibre in many of these.

“We know a healthy breakfast can make an important contribution to children’s vitamin and mineral intakes and its consumption has been linked to many positive health outcomes. There are plenty of healthier options available so we need campaigns like Change4Life to help busy parents make the right choices for their families.”

The Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 30 leading charities, medical colleges and campaign groups, also welcomed the move, saying online tools that allowed people to check sugar and fat in products could help parents and families make better food choices.

More than one in five children are overweight or obese when they start primary school, rising to more than a third when they leave.

Theresa May’s government was widely criticised in 2016 after it watered down previous commitments to place restrictions on junk food advertising and on unhealthy product placement in supermarkets.

Chef and healthy eating campaigner chef Jamie Oliver. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

The chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver accused ministers of letting down young people, and parents describing the childhood obesity strategy as “the same old bull [that] hasn’t worked for 20 years”.

As part of the strategy, the government is expected to bring in a sugar tax from April 2018, which will put up the price of sugary soft drinks. It has faced pressure from the soft drinks industry to reduce or scrap the levy.

The Obesity Health Alliance said it was important that the government pursued a robust obesity strategy. “The healthy choice isn’t always the easy choice, so it’s important that we have measures like the soft drinks industry levy and the sugar, salt and fat reduction programme to help create a healthier environment overall,” it said.

The PHE campaign will launch with television, digital and outdoor advertising and updated web content from Tuesday. More than 4.5 million free Be Food Smart packs will be given away to primary-age children and their families via schools and local authorities, and a roadshow will tour England from 9 January.

Children consume half of daily sugar quota at breakfast – study

Nestlé says it can slash sugar in chocolate without changing taste

Nestlé says it has found a way of slashing the amount of sugar in some of its chocolate bars by 40%, without compromising the taste.

The Swiss food company, whose products include Kit Kats, Aeros and Yorkies, said it has achieved the reduction by discovering a way “to structure sugar differently”. The new process is said to make sugar dissolve faster so that even when less is used, the tongue perceives an identical level of sweetness.

It plans to patent the process, discovered by its scientists, which it says will enable it to significantly decrease the total sugar in its confectionery products.

Sugar has been blamed for fuelling the obesity epidemic crippling the NHS in the UK and health campaigners have urged confectionery companies to cut unnecessary sugar from their products.

In 2104, Action on Sugar was launched with the goal of encouraging government and manufacturers to cut sugar in food by 30%.

In that context, Nestlé’s self-proclaimed breakthrough is likely to be welcomed, should it live up to its claims, and be potentially lucrative to the company.

It says it will begin to use the faster-dissolving sugar in its confectionery products from 2018.

A four-finger milk chocolate Kit Kat currently contains 23.8g of sugar, a plain (milk chocolate) Yorkie contains 26.9g and a medium peppermint Aero has 24.9g of sugar. If the amount of sugar in each of these products was cut by 40% the new amounts would be 14.3g, 16.1g and 14.9g respectively.

Dietary sugar should account for no more than 5% of daily calories consumed, which equates to 30g for those aged 11 and over, according to the UK’s official nutrition advisers.

Figures published in September showed that in 2012-14 the average was 13.4% for those aged between four and 10, 15.2% among 11- to 18-year-olds, 12.3% for adults under 65 and 11.1% for those aged 65 and over.

Nestlé’s chief technology officer, Stefan Catsicas, said: “This truly groundbreaking research is inspired by nature and has the potential to reduce total sugar by up to 40% in our confectionery.

“Our scientists have discovered a completely new way to use a traditional, natural ingredient.”

Nestlé says it can slash sugar in chocolate without changing taste

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Half of fizzy drinks have more sugar in one can than adult daily limit

Half of the fizzy drinks sold in supermarkets have more sugar in one can than an adult should consume in a day, with ginger beer as the worst offender, research has found.

New research reveals that 55% of all the carbonated drinks on sale in shops from Aldi to Waitrose contain more than 30 grams, or seven teaspoons, of sugar – the limit that everyone over the age of 11 is encouraged to stick to.

The high sugar content of such drinks is even worse when it comes to children’s health. A typical 330ml can of almost three out of four (73%) of the 169 products studied contained more than the 24g (six teaspoons) of sugar which official advice says is the most children aged seven to 10 should have over 24 hours.

Ginger beer contains the most sugar, according to the findings, which are published in the journal BMJ Open. The average sugar content across the 21 different types of branded and non-branded ginger beers studied was 38.5 grams, or 9.6 teaspoons, and 81% of them contained more than the 30g adult daily limit.

“It is disgraceful that so many children can access these products, which contain such staggering amounts of sugar, far in excess of their maximum allowance for the entire day. It is therefore not possible to state that these drinks can be consumed as part of a ‘healthy balanced diet’, even though drinks companies claim [they] can be”, said Kawther Hashem, a co-author of the study and researcher for the campaign group Action on Sugar based at Queen Mary University of London.

Flavoured colas were the second most heavily sugared. All four of the types tested had more than 30g of sugar and the average was 37.5g, or 9.4 teaspoons. They were followed by colas, fizzy orange drinks and cream soda, all of which contained on average more than 30g of sugar per 330ml.

The lowest amounts of sugar were found in elderflower, dandelion and burdock, lemonade and ginger ale. Hashem acknowledged that some manufacturers had already started reducing the sugar content of their fizzy drinks in advance of the government’s bringing in its planned sugar tax on such products.

Last week Tesco announced that it was cutting the amount of sugar in its own brand drinks to less than five grams per 100ml, the level at which the new levy is due to kick in. Ministers hailed the move as proof that the introduction of the tax is prompting beneficial change.

Suntory have also pledged that they will do the same, which will affect brands such as Lucozade and Ribena.

“It will be no surprise to most people that soft drinks contain a lot of sugar, but it’s the sheer amount of sugar that will come as a shock to many,” said a spokeswoman for the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of charities and medical organisations. “Drinking just one can of ginger beer or cola, for example, would immediately take you over the daily recommended limit for sugar, and significantly over if you’re a child.”

Free sugars are simply “empty calories” which are “seriously endangering people’s health” and contributing to type 2 diabetes, tooth decay and obesity, she said. The alliance is encouraged to see manufacturers such as Tesco reducing the amount of sugar in their products and others pledging to do the same, she added.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, said: “Over-consuming these high-calorie soft drinks with little nutritional value can lead to being overweight and obese, which can increase the risk of developing 11 common cancers in later life, including breast and prostate cancer.”

Half of fizzy drinks have more sugar in one can than adult daily limit

Tesco cuts sugar in own-brand drinks to avoid sugar tax

Tesco has escaped the government’s sugar tax by cutting the amount of sugar that its own-label soft drinks contain to below the 5 grams per 100ml at which the levy is supposed to come in.

The supermarket giant’s move was applauded by the government, which has attempted to concentrate industry minds on reformulation. Tesco, which announced it was changing the formula for all 251 of its own-brand soft drinks, declined to say how it had reduced the sugar content below taxable levels.

“This is just one part of our plans to make the food on our shelves healthier by reducing levels of sugar, salt and fat in our own brands,” said Matt Davies, Tesco’s chief executive for the UK and Republic of Ireland.

“We have worked to make sure our soft drinks still taste great, just with less sugar. Tesco customers are now consuming on average over 20% less sugar from our soft drinks than in 2011. We’re hoping this initiative will help make it a little easier for our customers to live more healthily.”

When asked how it had made the reformulation and whether it involved low calorie sweeteners or extra fruit, Tesco replied in a statement: “We’ve worked really hard to make sure the drinks still taste great and we’ve rigorously tested them with our customers.”

The government expressed satisfaction that the threatened tax was exerting the pressure it wanted on the soft drinks industry.

“It is great to see Tesco leading the field by reducing the level of sugar in their own-brand drinks,” said Nicola Blackwood, the public health minister. “It is proof that taking added sugar out of drinks is both possible and in line with what customers want.

“The government’s sugar levy is designed to encourage manufacturers to cut the sugar from their products before the levy comes into force in 2018. Responsible actions like this are so important in our fight against childhood obesity.”

The tax was announced by the then chancellor, George Osborne, in his budget in March but will not take effect until April 2018. It will affect producers and importers of soft drinks that contain “added sugar”.

Health campaigners and the government are particularly pleased with Tesco’s action because they are one of the biggest suppliers of own-label colas. The cut in sugar to 5g per 100ml represents a 50% reduction. The hope is that other manufacturers will follow suit.

Fruit juices will not be classified as soft drinks for the purposes of the tax, even though there is plenty of scientific evidence that they contain high quantities of natural sugars and therefore can contribute to obesity. Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, has said fruit juices and smoothies are the new danger, because of the assumption that they are healthy.

The consultation document on the soft drinks levy says “the legal definition of ‘added sugars’ used for the levy should exclude fruit juice, fruit puree, and fruit juice concentrate”. That leaves it open to soft drinks manufacturers to add extra fruit to boost the sweetness of their drink.

The Obesity Health Alliance, which brings together a number of health charities and groups concerned about the health impact of the nation’s weight, applauded the Tesco announcement and the implication that the tax threat was working, but said that was not enough.

“Just last week, new figures confirmed that over a fifth of children are overweight or obese by the time they start primary school, and a third by the time they reach year six,” it said in a statement. “So to try to stem the growth in obesity, it is vital that other supermarkets and food and drinks manufacturers follow Tesco’s lead and reformulate their own products too.

“However, reformulation alone will not solve this problem. It needs to be one of several measures that challenges the obesogenic environment that surrounds us, including closing loopholes to protect children from junk food marketing on TV and online.”

Prof Russell Viner, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s officer for health promotion, said: “This is really positive news and we congratulate Tesco on this move. Only last week figures showed that over a third of children are overweight or obese by the time they reach year six, so it is vital that this acts as a catalyst to inspire other producers and retailers to make similar changes.

“But this is just one step of many needed to make a serious impact on this deep seated problem. That is why in addition to reformulation we need to see restrictions on junk food advertising before 9pm, greater support for parents to reach and maintain a healthy weight before, during and after pregnancy and an extension to the national child measurement programme. It is only by taking a wider, more holistic approach that we will be able to overcome this national crisis.”

Tesco cuts sugar in own-brand drinks to avoid sugar tax

Prince Charles urged to cut sugar levels in Duchy Organic ice cream

Prince Charles should follow the lead of other food manufacturers by cutting the sugar in his Duchy Organic ice cream to a healthier level, health campaigners have said.

A new analysis by the Action on Sugar campaign group reveals that Duchy Organic ice cream – sold in Waitrose supermarkets – contains almost twice as much sugar as some other brands.

It was singled out by researchers as an example of the differing levels of sugar in exactly the same kinds of foods which appeal to children.

Action on Sugar is urging companies to support Public Health England’s voluntary reformulation programme to help tackle the childhood obesity epidemic, which it claims is the biggest public health crisis facing the UK.

The survey of foods commonly consumed by children including breakfast cereals, yoghurts, biscuits, cakes, confectionery, pastries, ice creams and chocolate spreads shows that products containing less sugar are in plentiful supply.

For example, Duchy Organic vanilla ice cream, with 14.5g of sugar per 100g, was found to have 84% more sugar than Asda’s “smart price” vanilla ice cream, with 7.9g sugar.

Data was collected by visiting Aldi, Asda, Co-operative, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose using the FoodSwitch app to collect data on nutritional information. The survey was carried out during August and products were checked again during September.

Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum and an expert advisory team member of Action on Sugar, said: “George Osborne’s sugar levy announcement in March must be regarded as his swansong as chancellor.

“At a stroke, he concentrated the mind of sugar-happy soft drink manufacturers seriously to consider reformulating their products to an acceptable level.

“As Action on Sugar’s research shows, many food manufacturers got the message, too. All, and Prince Charles in particular, should now follow their lead. The added bonus is that they will have dramatically aided the health of millions of people, let alone the NHS.”

A spokesperson for Waitrose said the Duchy Organic vanilla ice cream was an “indulgent” treat not aimed at children, adding: “The sugar content is clearly labelled and we sell a range of vanilla ice creams with a significantly lower sugar content, which our customers can choose if they want a healthier option.

“Reducing sugar is a top priority and we have an extensive reformulation programme to achieve this, which has already included significantly reducing sugar in chilled juices, cereals, yoghurts, soups, cordials and fizzy drinks.”

Kawther Hashem, a nutritionist and researcher at Action on Sugar, said:“Unhealthy foods are the biggest cause of death and disability in the UK and it is time the food industry took their responsibility for this seriously.

“They now need to make this a priority and ensure children are not eating three times their daily maximum intake of sugar.”

Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London and chair of Action on Sugar, said reformulation was one of the most effective ways of reducing sugar and, if done properly, meant the UK could lead the world in this area.

“We therefore urge the prime minister, Theresa May, to fully support it and commit the government to both fat reformulation, as it’s the biggest source of calories than sugar, and to start restrictions of marketing, advertising and promotion of unhealthy foods.”

In August, leading retailers criticised the government’s watered-down childhood obesity strategy just days after its publication, arguing it would be better if ministers imposed mandatory cuts to sugar levels in food rather than leaving it up to voluntary initiatives by manufacturers.

Prince Charles urged to cut sugar levels in Duchy Organic ice cream

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