Did anyone see Jamie’s Sugar Rush on Channel 4 a few weeks ago? Jamie Oliver’s new campaign to tackle childhood obesity by reducing sugar intake through a sugar tax on soft drinks.
It was an excellent programme and showed, among many other things, how successful a sugar tax on soft drinks has been in the world’s fattest country, Mexico.
I signed up to the petition – which you can do too via his Sugar Rush site – and I am glad to say that it now has nearly 143,000 signature which means that it will at least be considered for a parliamentary debate.
Meanwhile… I have just had the following response from HM Gov. Petitions Department/DOH:
The Government has no plans to introduce a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The Government will announce its plans for tackling childhood obesity by the end of the year.
The Government has no plans to introduce a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.
The Government has committed to a tax lock to avoid raising the cost of living and to promote UK productivity and economic growth, however, the Government keeps all taxes under review, with decisions being a matter for the Chancellor as part of the Budget process.
The causes of obesity are complex, caused by a number of dietary, lifestyle, environmental and genetic factors, and tackling it will require a comprehensive and broad approach. As such, the Government is considering a range of options for tackling childhood obesity, and the contribution that Government, alongside industry, families and communities can make, and will announce its plans for tackling childhood obesity by the end of the year.
Department of Health
Well, well – what a surprise… It was inevitable that the soft drinks industry would be in there making their case before Jamie, or anyone else, had even opened their mouths. But how come the government has not yet got any plans to tackle childhood obesity? How long has this been a problem? 20 years? How long do they need?
Well, we shall all await the end of the year – but I can’t say that my hopes are high. If progress it going be made I suspect it will only be in reponse to pressure from high profile campaigners and seriously focused groups – such as Jamie or Professor Graham McGregor who had such success with his CASH salt reduction campaign. Fortunately for obese children, Prof McGregor is on the sugar case too – see his Action on Sugar.
For those interested in the sugar debate, the British Society for Ecological Medicine is running one of their excellent conferences on SUGAR – The Brain, the Microbiome and Cancer on October 2nd in London. You can book a ticket here.
It’s no huge surprise to me to think that the large food manufacturing companies have already put their case to the government. Even when they do attempt to put measures in place (such as reducing salt in school meals) misguided views lead to ludicrous situations. For example, did you know that in some schools children are not allowed to eat plain, ready salted crisps on the premises but can still eat as many cakes as they like at lunch time? Where is the debate on the amount of wheat and dairy being consumed by youngsters? Cheese sandwiches and pizza for lunch every day are still considered to be a “healthy choices” despite the fact that food tolerances are on the rise. So many issues to tackle, where do we begin? Perhaps by better education around how our food is grown, where it is sourced and how to understand the confusing labeling of products so that people can be aware of just how many chemicals are added into the food chain. No wonder we’re all ill. Truly I despair for the future when it comes down to health v “The Man”.
Excess sugar in our diets has been an issue since the 1970s as I recall. I forget the scientst’s name, but there was a campaign and a book, I believe, focussing on the slogan “Pure, white and deadly”. I think we couldn’t get enough of it since post WWII rationing ended, and somewhere along the way food manufacturers realised that anything with sugar in it sold well, including foods supposed to be savoury. Of course sugar wasn’t the only issue, but it’s been the one that has been ignored by government as far as I can see.
I found it very interesting watching the recent TV series “Back in Time for Dinner”. Whether it intended to or not, it charted the quite rapid progression from mostly unprocessed “boring” foods to diets high in far more exciting processed foods, and, although it was glossed over a bit, the seemingly unstoppable slide into obesity for a lot of us. I was one of those post war kids who, despite my parents’ best efforts and my own continual dieting, slid along with so many.
It shocks the hell out of me that supposedly healthy low fat foods are packed with sugar to make them palatable. Personally I avoid low fat versions of food like the plague. I prefer to eat foods less “mucked about with” as my parents would have put it. I’ll eat less high fat food and avoid the “hidden” sugar in the so called healthy alternatives. By eating more honest food, and realising I have problems with gluten, I’ve lost a lot of weight and gained reasonable control.
Sugary drinks are a real “baddy” because it’s so easy to slug them back. I was fortunate that my rather strict parents never gave us the choice, we drank water. I never got into the habit of drinking anything else if I was thirsty. Somewhere along the line when I was a new mother in the late ’80s there was the introduction of “healthier” juice drinks. Recently I read how much fruit sugar and calories we consume just drinking fruit juice, something we all thought would be the healthy option. It would be difficult to eat the equivalent whole fruit from which the juice is taken in one day, let alone one sitting. Mind you, I’m also somewhat taken aback to hear of advice that diet zero coke and the like would be better for children to drink than fruit juice. No doubt it has less sugar, but what else “mucked about with” is in there?
I feel sorry for Jamie Oliver. I believe he’s a good man who wants to use his profile and food knowledge to address diet issues, especially those that affect children. However, he’s put his head above the parapet and upset the sections of the food industry who appear to be quite powerful and self interested. I saw him interviewed on, I think, Channel 4 News, about this campaign. The interviewer pretty much started off on the offensive by asking how this campaign would succeed when the School Dinners campaign had failed! It went downhill after that, with the interview deviating quite quickly into questions about “immigrants” working in Jamie restaurants!
I think he has an uphill struggle ahead of him.
HI Jacqui – the 1970s sugar campaigner was John Yudkin!I think Jamie, like all campaigners, has a tough job – but I think he is pretty tough and has learned to survive the brickbats. The fact hat he has been so successful with his books etc also helps. More power to him that he is prepared to pick up the cudgels and fight!
As so often its a question of ‘follow the money’. Children are biologically hard wired to want sugar. Sugar is cheap,and increases sales. Ergo..!
Not sure that I would agree with the ‘children are hard wired to want sugar’ – I think that the passion for sugar is learned addictive behaviour, not hard wiring.
On very small example – although there were a lot of excellent sweet entries for the children’s category of the FreeFrom Food Awards both last year and the year before, in both years the winners and the runners up were savoury products. The kids quite liked the sweet ones but were much ore interested in exciting savoury one.