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

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

Today, doctors are calling on the government to levy an experimental 20% tax on sugary soft drinks and to make local councils limit the number of fast-food outlets outside schools, colleges and leisure centres - to help prevent the UK's obesity crisis becoming "unresolvable".

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (which represents nearly every doctor in the UK) says it wants measures like these brought in to break the cycle of "generation after generation falling victim to obesity-related illnesses and death".

One in four adults in England is obese, and predictions are that obesity rates will soon rise to 60% of men, 50% of women and 25% of children.

The British Retail Consortium has countered by saying it's wrong to "demonise" fast-food outlets and it's down to parents to help children "build a healthy and responsible attitude to eating a balanced diet overall".

What do you think?

Do we all need measures like the doctors are suggesting to help us - and our children - stay at a healthy weight?

Or should we be left alone to eat - and feed our children - whatever we choose?

[MadBusLady]

This does worry me as well. It seems to me there are actually very few foods and/or nutrients whose precise impact on national obesity is understood. Sugar is such an obviously unnecessary substance that I don't really care what they do with fizzy drinks but I'd argue strongly against taxes on (say) butter and cheese.

[PolkadotCircus]

But obesity is costing the NHS millions and draining resources.

I loath white bread but not sure it is as damaging and pointless as sugary drinks.Maybe biscuits and chips over a certain calorie and fat content should be taxed more-we'd eat less of them that's for sure.Since food prices have gone up I've stopped buying all sorts if things we can't afford.

Drinks are a great place to start as they serve zero purpose.

[roundtoit]

what i meant was today its fizzy drinks but next it could be all food getting VAT added, because this government will do anything to get more money off us.

[RedToothBrush]

merrymouse, they do that on ALL food products and it drives me nuts. You have to be really on the ball when reading the labels.

But thats the other half of the issue, people are eating too much and everyone thinks a 'serving' is actually a lot bigger than it is in reality. So when you have an understanding of portion sizes that is wrong, then it doesn't really matter whether they are eating home cooked or processed food. Your perception is still wrong. Why is it that one of the best diets out there is supposed to be the 9" plate diet?! (But who makes money from this diet? Not the food manufacturers... Not the magazines who can sell you the next latest diet fad in a few months time.)

As for doctors knowing what they are talking about; I don't buy into giving doctors infallibility status I'm afraid. See BigPharma for a few examples.

And no Polka, there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING in the proposals about diet drinks. Sugary drinks are an easy target because it panders to the public's limited understanding of the problem. That in itself is an issue. The public doesn't understand what's killing them and even the word 'diet' is suggestive. As are labels like sugar free, or fat free if people don't properly understand what they put in their food instead and that there is no such thing as a 'bad' food only too much of it. Because these are the messages we have been sold and bought into, time and time again.

So for doctors, of all people, to be actually ENDORSING this way of thinking and are COMPLICIT with it; I get really angry about it all.

All of these things are something that can be sold as 'being good for us' with a lot more ease. And the likes of Coca Cola, won't put up too much of a fight on this one because they will welcome a change like this more than they will like education!

Its all just more advertising and propaganda. Rather than trying to actually solve the problems.

[MN044]

It's a ridiculous idea. How long have we been fed the line that 'diet' foods are the way to lose weight and have a healthy diet? All we've ended up with are a load of frankenstein foods full of god knows what. Margarine, low fat, low sugar, anything that has a list of ingredients that looks like it would be more at home on a shampoo bottle or in a lab than in your body. We're told to eat pasta, baked potatoes, drink fruit juice. But actually, in my own experience, I had to go very low carb to lose the weight I'd stacked on through an unhealthy diet and in pregnancy. It's very easy to say 'ooooh but I eat so well, I cook everything from scratch'. If you eat too much, you will become overweight. For me, low carb works. So no sugar, but plenty of good fats. Real butter, cream. No fruit juice or yoghurts packed with sweetner. But that's ME. Who decides what's healthy and what's not? And councils can't town plan for a fig anyway. What of convenience shops close to schools? There's one at the end of our road that is packed every day after the primary school kicks out, full of children buying sweets. There are 2 aisles of sweets in a small corner shop. There's 2 tiny shelves of wilting veg. But I wouldn't want it closed. The economy is bad enough without shops having to shut because they're too close to a school for goodness sake. Personal responsibility is what is going to stop an obesity epidemic. But like far too much nowadays, people are complacent. People have normailsed their size as they're surrounded by people of a similar size. It makes me despair when I see how many of my 8 and 4 yo's classmates are already seriously overweight, and for their sakes I wish there was a simple answer. If a child was seriously underweight I think people would be more quick to refer them for help and to expect the parents to do something. But it's almost become a question of ettiquette as well- it's considered very rude to suggest someone is overweight.

[PolkadotCircus]

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.

[Itsjustafleshwound]

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.

[Itsjustafleshwound]

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.

[RedToothBrush]

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.

[Viviennemary]

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.

[PolkadotCircus]

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.

[Loudy]

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.

[PolkadotCircus]

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

[PolkadotCircus]

Healthy eating

[wasabipeanut]

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.

[ironhorse]

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.

[TapirBackRider]

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?

[jenbird]

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.

[Johnnysknickers]

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.

[Tortington]

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

[Ruprekt]

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.

[Startail]

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.

[MerylStrop]

What Custardo said

[IneedAsockamnesty]

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.

[Kiwiinkits]

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.