The Guardian view on sugar: cut it out

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/15/the-guardian-view-on-sugar-cut-it-out

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As the nation digests its breakfast of sweetened cereals and bread on Thursday , the UK’s official nutrition advisers, the scientific advisory committee on nutrition, will publish a new recommended daily limit for sugar. They are expected to confirm a provisional suggestion that people should halve their daily calories from sugar from 10% to 5%. If adopted, a small 45g bar of our favourite milk chocolate would account for more than half the recommended daily allowance. It will also mark official recognition of growing global concern about the impact of sugar on the widening obesity epidemic.

This week has provided more shocking evidence of the toll of the nation’s disastrous eating habits: first, the British Medical Association reported that 26,000 children had to have rotten teeth removed in hospital last year. Another report calculated that 135 people a week are having body parts amputated because of diabetes. This is an unacceptable cost, both for the patients and for the NHS. It is time for the government to take meaningful action. There is a long list of policies proven to work in trials or other countries. The workability of a general sugar tax is open to question, but doctors believe that taxing sugary drinks could work. Food companies could be obliged to improve food labelling, including making it clear that sugar substitutes can be just as damaging. Supermarkets should ban sweets and chocolate at checkouts and introduce tighter restrictions on two-for-one offers. Supersized portions should be shrunk. Advertising needs more regulating. What is missing is not the detail but the will. Each one of these ideas means telling both voters and powerful corporations what to do.

Under the coalition, public health went backwards. Nutritional standards in schools were weakened, the once-effective Food Standards Agency was hollowed out and its funding cut. But there is a precedent that offers hope. Government intervention on smoking, done with incremental bans and restrictions, has transformed public health. If the government started to intervene on sugar in a meaningful way it could begin to build the evidence and public support. Start soon enough and, in five years’ time, voters might even thank them.