To love the idea of a "sugar tax?"

[Toomanyhouseguests]

I really do try to be good, but sugar is so cheap and inviting that the kids diets are a constant, relentless battle that I always lose in the end.

I know it is nannying, but I love this idea:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27961475

The environment that I live in is a constant onslaught from outside the home of sugar. Sugar from school, sugar from neighbours, sugar from church, sugar from kids clubs etc. If that environment changed because junk wasn't so cheap, it would certainly help me! And, if I am honest, it would change some of my shopping habits. My husband loves snacks and treats as much as the kids do, but he also wants the monthly shopping budget to stay under control.

Anyone else feeling this way? Or am I the only one unable to hold the line here?

Maybe change your school? My children don't get sweets as classroom rewards.

School fetes are once or twice a year. Birthday parties are not every day, either.

Your OP is about your own shopping. That is what you need to control.

Stop trying to portray yourself as the victim. You need to change your own behaviour. Your children won't be obese and their diets will not be filled with junk from just birthdays and the occasional school fete.

I think it would be a good idea IF it was designed to be revenue-neutral and all the tax collected got redistributed back to households on the basis of how many people lived there.

Then, the sugary snacks are more expensive than the healthy options so everyone is more likely to choose healthier options, and those who take care to usually choose healthy will actually make a profit even if they occasionally indulge in something less healthy, and that will be at the expense of those who usually choose unhealthily.

Cote would you be opposed to a tax on sugary foods if it was used directly to subsidise a reduction in the price of fresh, unprocessed, fairtrade, organic food and educate people about what a healthy meal truly is?

Is that still too much nannying?

But OP, you've decided that 2/3rds of adults are overweight because of sugar, that's rubbish though, they're not, as I said above the amount of sugar consumption is the same as the 19th century and lower than the 1990's. The difference is the amount of physical activity that is done, getting more activity will do a lot more good than reducing sugar consumption.

If your goal is reducing obesity, a sugar tax will not do it, you appear to be focusing on what your perceived difficulty is.

Or, in similar ungeniuslike vein, simply tax everything you currently consider to be bad for the masses. What could go wrong?

Ron like cigarettes, alcohol, petrol, CO2 emissions....

Call me mad but I'd like to see some politicians make the food industry do something. Rather than knee jerk tax.

How about heavily increasing taxes on pasta, rice, butter, olive oil - everything that is high in calories? What makes you sure that sugar is singularly egregious in UK's fight against widespread obesity?

What is your problem with sugar? Except that sugar-hate is fashionable at the moment with the diet websites & tabloids you read, that is.

I reckon there's a million poor sugar growers, somwhere in the steamy plantation shouting 'cote cote cote. give her what for cote'

I'm not anti sugar, fwiw. I just think there's a lack of education about what a really healthy balanced diet should consist of.

Jar sauces, convenience food is often just so bland with very little value.

Personally, I eat too much chocolate but that's down to my own lack of will power. It would have to be very expensive for me to be discouraged. I eat it as part of a healthy diet though but I see too many kids who seem to be living on chips, red bull and sweets which is awful.

Whether increasing tax on petrol adversely affects poorer people is also hotly debated...

YABU. Police yourself.

I would like to say very clear labelling of foods which contain added sugar.

Like "THERE ARE 6 TEASPOONS OF SUGAR IN THIS PASTA SAUCE" or similar. Instead of kidding people they're buying a healthy option (which is actually stuffed full of glucose fructose syrup)