Tax on fizzy drinks and curb on takeaway outlets to fight obesity: good idea or not?

petit filous is a bit of a bug bear of mine - i heard bloody health visitors in baby clinics recommending that and dairy lea sodding triangles to mothers who were weaning!?!?! like what???

why would you train your baby/toddler into eating processed, nutrion-less, sugar filled crap right from the start? and why a dairy lea triangle rather than a bit of regular cheese?

coke and takeaways are the least of our problems. they are foods we can see and know are not good for us so can choose to moderate. it's the stock foods that people are consuming that are full of this crap without most people realising that need to be addressed.

it's like dealing with tightening your purse strings by saying well i won't buy that ice cream i have once a month on the beach whilst still sticking brand name ketchup and m&s finest in your trolly every week.

sorry i keep repeating myself about transfats and fructose glucose syrup - but what is the point of banning soft drinks or chips say when petit filous (marketed to babys and kids as 'healthy') has fructose glucose syrup in it and is made of skimmed milk powder? people really believe this crap is good for their toddlers instead of picking up a natural yoghurt whose only sugar is naturally occurring from milk and has more nutrition in it and no added crap and adding a spoonful of pureed apple?

we need to stop pretending that it's just we eat too many chips or sit around swigging coke all day. the very stuff marketed to us and our kids as healthy is full of crap that contributes to obesity.

first port of call is banning trans fats (we know they're horrendous killers but still allow manufacturers to put them in our food) and fructose glucose. if ten years after that we still have problems you can look to the next culprit but i'm guessing takeaways will be low down the list of actual harmful obesity producing food practices and habits in the food industry.

I would like to see one hour of sport every day in schools and proper nutritious food in hospitals.
Our hospital has a Burger King - go figure.
An exclusion zone around schools is sensible.
And more cooking lessons in school and food budgeting too.
Tax on high sugar foods could be spent on research into obesity.
And trans fats need to go

Mmmmmh, so fizzy drinks today and then what's next, white bread? Fried chicken? Sweets? Chocolate?...... People know fizzy drinks are bad for you just like booze and cigarettes are but it's about making choices and we (as adults)should be free to make them, we pay quite a bit of tax already.
I totally agree that schools, colleges and lesisure centres should not have vending machines full of drinks, Crisps and sweets or sell Chips etc but they do it to make money!
If we want people to eat more healthily then remove vending machines, plough funds into education, make healthy foods less expensive, maybe make fruit free in schools and stop public bodies serving unhealthy food so they set a good example.

Taxing things doesn't work. just look at cigarettes and alcohol, there has been a reduction in smoking but that is due to education and banning smoking in public buildings.

Also I don't want to pay more for the few luxuries I want to enjoy. I have a large family and due to becoming a single parent since having them I have a very small budget, why should my children miss out on treats such as a chippy tea because I don't have a lot of disposable cash? Why should I miss out on fizzy drinks or proper butter? I can't afford to drink or smoke, I don't go out more than a few times a year and I only buy myself new clothes when I don't have any choice.

I'm lucky enough to have been taught to cook by my parents but I have a friend who didn't even know how to microwave beans when she met me, her parents didn't cook so she'd never learnt how to. Giving her a recipe book didn't work as she didn't understand most of the terms in it. Her standard evening meal consisted of "chips from the chippy". She could feed herself, her partner and her three kids for less than £3. Now she can cook, she always wanted to but didn't know how to learn. Didn't know what boiling water looked like, didn't know what a medium hot pan was or how to dice food. She's learnt the different terms and styles and now finds new recipes on the internet and cooks every night. People need someone they can ask without being made to feel stupid.

It would be better to offer free nutrition and cookery classes to expectant (natural and adoptive) parents. It isn't expensive to make home made food from fresh ingredients (assuming you live near enough the right shops) although it is cheaper and quicker to buy take away/processed food. I can feed my family of six for three meals a day for less than £50 per week. The thing is that you need to learn how to use the cheaper cuts of meat, seasonal veg and how to shop economically.

I agree with MimsyBorogroves in that you have to teach people how to cook healthier versions of what they already eat. Presenting people with unfamiliar dishes and saying don't eat that eat this won't work.

The other point to be made is that children under five need full fat dairy products, taxing butter and cream etc is going to make it harder for poorer parents to provide these. Also to many carbohydrates are the reason that most people are overweight in the UK.

And finally made from concentrate fruit juice has the same amount of sugar in as a full fat coke. A 10oz glass of either contains 7 teaspoons of sugar, will the Government be taxing that?

Don't agree with the 'ban' on fastfood outlets near schools - too difficult to implement.

I think there's something in the idea of bottle sizes, that someone noted above. ie, make it mandatory for bottles to contain either one serving (with a restriction on the amount of calories possible for one serving of any drink) or more than 10 servings. So that it's really hard for people to inadvertently drink 3 servings thinking they're only having one. Obvs there would be effects on the number of plastic bottles that are produced and discarded, with the corresponding environmental consequences, and this would have to be taken into account.

Also strongly support the idea of regulating "energy" drinks, e.g. drinks over a certain number of calories per serving are only to be sold to 18+. I think this is done in Canada? In NZ it is common to see 7-8 year old (boys usually) with HUGE cans of energy drink, which contain 25+ tsps of sugar. Disgusting.

Pointless idea.

It would be much better to do something about the supermarkets almost obsessive processing of almost everything they sell and how they dictate almost everything we eat.

What Custardo said

utterly ridiculous,

I hate the taste of artificial sweeteners, but 90% of the time I drink, black coffee or tea with semi skimmed milk and no sugar.

why on earth should I pay extra for the very few sweet drinks I have.

As for limiting fast food joints, people will just take the car to a further one or stuff junk from the local spar if they haven't got a car.

starving teen, who cant be bothered to wait for mum to get in from work isn't suddenly going to start eating apples or putting together a wholesome salad.

Great programme on radio 2 today about this. Expert said that sugar was as addictive as cocaine.

Since I started low carbing, I have cut out ALL sugar and feel SO much better. Am also looking at cutting sugar in my boys food too.

i think they should tax rich people 10p in every pound and then use that money to fund parenting classes which would include a healthy eating element.

what is this tosh anyway - ont take your eye off the suicide creation that is the welfare reform people.

cola and horsemeat are not the problem. the tories are

I like fizzy drinks and am definitely not fat. For me, it's not a good thing. I'll continue to drink them and just pay more as will most people who like them I feel.

This is a subject I feel very strongly on. I agree that fizzy drinks should be taxed higher (all of them inc diet). They are a "luxury item" and totally unnecessary to any diet. I think we should move longer term to higher tax on all products which have huge percentages of "added" sugar and salt.
I don't like the idea of a nanny state and yes ultimately we should have personal responsibility but the truth is we don't. That is why our obesity levels are increasing rapidly. We do need to educate and provide healthy alternatives but as a state we also need to pay for the ever increasing cost to the healthcare system that is a direct result of an unhealthy diet.

I don't particularly agree with these proposals simply because these ideas are already being used in regards to tobacco and alcohol, and don't really work.

Yes, the extra taxation has made some people give up consuming these things, but doesn't have much of an effect on the target audience, who still smoke and drink as normal.

Why use a method which is being shown to not work, and which will penalise society at large for the choices of a minority?

i dont think its a particularly good idea because i dont know anyone who has got obese drinking ONLY drinking fizzy drinks - they are only a tiny part of the problem. on the TV there was a chap with a bottle of ribena and he said it had 12 or 14 teaspoons of sugar in it - ribena isnt a fizzy drink though... i think what would be better is making them print on the bottle the amount of sugar they have in them expressed in terms everyone understand e.g. teaspoons.

they also need to provide a healthy alternative, not everyone drinks tea or coffee and water is pretty bland.

as for banning fast food outlets beside schools that only affects children - what about everyone else in society? that to me says its ok to have lots of fast food outlets but as long as they arent near schools we wont mind as much.

its easy saying teach people to cook etc. but i think they need to provide better quality food which has less hidden ingrediants, go back to more natural foods that arent filled with fillers, bulking material, fat, sugars. i think half the time they add fat or sugar to hide the taste of all the other crap they put in food - i also think a lot of ill health comes from the additives in food which helps mae it cheaper.

I agree with pretty much all these proposals actually. The counter argument that we should educate children to make the right choices is failing IMO because it takes too long and because we're not on a level playing field because of the cash that junk food producers can throw at advertising.

There is nothing good in a sweet, fizzy drink. Nothing. Even diet ones might not have the calories but they have loads of chemicals in them that are just not necessary at best and downright harmful at worst.

I can't help feeling that when it comes to fizzy drinks in particular we're going the way of the US and their 64oz buckets of pop. If you need two hands to hold a drink, it's too fucking big. Really.

Having said all that the whole horse meat scandal demonstrates just how far we've become removed from food production. I think it's all a lot more complicated that just whacking a tax on harmful food and drink. I think the sad truth is that a lot of people will shove anything in their mouth and I'm really not sure how we can teach people to respect themselves and their health to try and change this.

Healthy eating

My kids are 8 and 9 they have already covered eating at school.

I never buy fizzy drinks for my two boys, and have always made healthy meals at home. They have both now moved to senior school I'm appalled at quality of the food at morning break and lunchtime. My youngest seems to have pizza for morning break and then pizza at lunchtime most days. There is also a vending machine with bottles of fizzy pop and surgar soft drinks. I am thinking of changing them onto packed lunches as I feel that all the good work in their early years is now going to waste.

Errr weight management centres have a part to play in education,you can't just teach kids in school as they're not buying their food.A few home ec lessons won't solve the problem.

Also every one of those things on that list would be valuable.

No I don't agree with the tax on fizzy drinks. Why are they being targetted and not sweets, cakes and biscuits which not only contain sugar but also saturated fat. And are no better for our health. I agree with teaching all children about healthy food. And children should be given lessons on healthy eating, cookery and meal planning.

And some school meals still leave a lot to be desired. So a start could be made there.

So why are doctors endorsing this OVER AND ABOVE education.

Let me be clear about this.

The AoMRC who are behind these proposals. Its here www.aomrc.org.uk/about-us/news/item/doctors-unite-to-deliver-prescription-for-uk-obesity-epidemic.html for the purposes of highlighting this and showing that the BBC news report didn't miss something.

The list of recommendations that it highlights on its own bulletin are:

• Food-based standards to be mandatory in all UK hospitals
• A ban on new fast food outlets being located close to schools and colleges
• A duty on all sugary soft drinks, increasing the price by at least 20%, to be piloted
• Traffic light food labelling to include calorie information for children and adolescents ? with visible calorie indicators for restaurants, especially fast food outlets
• £100m in each of the next three years to be spent on increasing provision of weight management services across the country
• A ban on advertising of foods high in saturated fats, sugar and salt before 9pm
• Existing mandatory food- and nutrient-based standards in England to be statutory in free schools and academies

But not ONE of these is in any way related to education! NOT ONE.

But taxing it is so stupid. It sounds like such a great idea to tax it and then earmark the money for better education, but it never happens and no tax revenue is ever ringfenced and used to solve the reason for the tax.

Dr Robert Lustig is very vocal about the evils of sugar.

Taxing this is a very blunt instrument. Stop the outlets discounting fizzy drinks and stop the whole bottomless glass offers.

Red I think you need both.

I'm food educated but have to say trawling through food can be time consuming,not all people have that and cost/labelling would help hugely.We're all becoming driven more by cost and to be able to know also which convenience foods were high in sugar would certainly help me.

A tax on sugary drinks could help to fund more education.Fact is we need more money to treat obesity and to educate about it.