Sugar tax

[Sum1Ls]

The report by Public Health England recommending that sugar should be taxed has just been published.

We have a severe obesity crisis in this country, caused principally by the over consumption of sugar, most particularly in the case of children and young people, of sugary drinks and fruit juices.

The Prime Minister admits he has not bothered to read the report but opposes the tax anyway because he 'doesn't believe in raising taxes'. He has no problem taxing other health imparing substances such as cigarettes or alcohol or imposing stamp duty on the sale of houses.

In my view this is disgraceful. It is estimated that a sugar tax would save the NHS billions of pounds each year and lead to greatly improved health for the entire population.

Your thoughts please.

[Sum1Ls]

[Elisi]

Good question Sum1Ls.

My thoughts: Regardless of the obesity "epidemic" (which IMHO, I do not believe to be as severe as the media states) firstly may I just comment that the tax on cigarettes, alcohol and Stamp Duty are all HISTORIC TAXES, not casually introduced by the Tories. They have been around for yonks! So long I suspect no one knows exactly which Party bought them in! I must Google that, it is interesting.

Now to the nub of the matter. I strongly feel David Cameron is right not to introduce a sugar tax. Once you begin to tax food, where do you stop???? The door is then wide open! Why not tax butter and cheese, after all they are full of fat? And as for meat, well, tax red meat, why not, etc., etc. It would just give any Government permission to eventually tax the air we breathe!

Also, what about the low paid workers? Often the cheapest food is laden with sugar as pure sugar or in carbohydrate form. These folk can't afford meat and veg every day, two working parents, trying to put a meal on the table and it's pie and chips as they are both on shifts and haven't got time to cook. Just one small example.

What we really need to do, as a Nation, and how Cameron can help here is to approach the MANUFACTURERS of food a lot of which is laden with sugar and PROTEST about the corn syrup and the Glucose/Dextrose put in almost everything to make mass produced food taste better. TAKE IT OUT. We want normal food, not food with chemicals and sugar.

This is something the Government could support easily. It also takes us lot living here on this Island to wake up and realise that a Protest against our food being sugared to death might just force the manufacturers to think again.

Then finally there is also the fact that as a Country we must ENCOURAGE people from all over the spectrum to learn the facts about sugar/obesity and why not employ experts to visits schools and workplaces explaining how a high sugar diet can wreck their health. We have had this already in the village primary school, a FOC talk from a local dietician to help the children to grow up understanding diet and the nutrition of the human body better.

So NO Tax please on Sugar, because I know in my heart it will not stop there! Education is the way forward along with fighting the producers of this food.

[Daisy]

I think it will take a change of attitude. How many of us give children an edible treat that contains added sugar? Do you include say, a selection box in your GCs' Christmas stocking? As a nation we see sugary foods as 'rewards' - a bar of chocolate after a hard day's work for example. How many people comfort eat raw vegetables!

Then, of course, there's the hidden sugar not just in highly processed junk food, but in things like baked beans, for example.

At the Eden Project in St Austell there's a display about the growing of sugar beet and sugar cane and the history of sugar. Hundreds of years ago (I can't remember how many) the average person ate 1 spoonful of sugar a YEAR!

I think it would help if children did more cooking so they could see how delicious food can be without the white stuff. Perhaps we, as grand mothers, have a role to play here - just a thought!

[Skye]

Well said Elisi! In my opinion people would still buy sugary things tax or not. Look at cigarettes and alcohol, if people really want them, they 'll still buy them even when they've reached astronomical prices. Also Big Brother is getting rather uncomfortable.....

[Oma]

Elisi made very valid points as did Daisy and Skye , I agree with Skye if they want it putting a Tax on it will make no difference at all , Also as parents and grandparents we can control childrens sugar intake to a point but once they reach a certain age we cant control what they eat outside the home ,

[Avo]

Back to the 'nanny state' again, wanting to tell people what to do ........ individuals need to be educated to understand sugar is bad for you and to make informed choices to avoid it. It's not for the Government to introduce Tax to try to stop people buying it - that won't work.

[WeeGranny]

On another sugar note.....if a certain Jamie Oliver is so concerned about our intake of sugar, why doesn't he stop selling sugary drinks at his restaurant instead of just putting the price up by 10p?
Don't think a sugar tax is the answer to our obesity crisis. Stopping putting sugar into food would go a long way to help.