“Confronting” Australian public campaign to highlight impact of sugary drinks on obesity and cancer

29 Oct 2018 --- Cancer Council Victoria has launched a “confronting” public awareness campaign to inform Australians about the link between obesity and 13 types of cancer. The campaign seeks to address the fact that nearly two-thirds of Australians are overweight or obese, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and that one crucial way to lose weight is to cut sugary drinks from the diet. The “gruesome” images of the campaign have been likened to the public health approach used to warn smokers of the dangers of tobacco.

The campaign, which began yesterday, will last for five weeks and be shown on TV and radio as well as featuring across social media channels and outdoors across the Victoria state.

The adverts will feature Melbourne surgeon Dr. Ahmad Aly exposing in “graphic detail” the impacts of sugary drinks on internal health, as his laparoscopic camera will show the inside a patient’s body to expose the dangerous toxic fat around internal organs.

“A third of Victorians admit to drinking more than a liter of sugary drink each week, that’s more than 5.5kgs of sugar a year. We want people to realize that they could be drinking their way towards weight gain, obesity and toxic fat, increasing their risk of 13 types of cancer,” says Dr. Aly.

Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper acknowledged that the campaign’s portrayal of toxic fat could be confronting but said so was the fact that nearly two-thirds of Australians were overweight or obese.

“While talking about weight is a sensitive issue, we can’t shy away from the risk being above a healthy weight poses to our health,” Harper says.

“With around 3,900 cancers in Australia each year linked to being above a healthy weight, it’s vital that we work hard to help people understand the link and encourage them to take steps to reduce their risk,” he adds.

The fight against sugar
Aside from the public awareness campaign, Cancer Council Victoria is working with partner organizations to encourage governments, the food industry and communities to make changes around soft drinks.

“It’s virtually impossible to escape the enormous amount of marketing for sugary drinks surrounding us on TV, social media and public transport. It’s also easier to get a sugary drink than it is to find a water fountain in many public places, and that’s got to change. We need to take sugary drinks out of schools, recreation and healthcare settings to make it easier for Victorians to make healthy choices,” says Jane Martin, Executive Manager of the Obesity Policy Coalition.

“The need for a healthy weight strategy in Victoria, as well as nationally, is overdue. In the same way tobacco reforms have saved lives, we now need to apply the same approach to improving diets,” she adds.

The way in which the public consumption of sugary beverages is has undergone regulation in parts of the world could be likened with smoking and tobaccos public health path. Will we see gruesome images and warnings one day depicted on the front of soda cans?

Responding to San Francisco’s decision to impose health warnings on ads for sugar-sweetened drinks, the Australian Beverage Council noted that such adverts would achieve nothing. They further state that soft drinks are not the root cause of obesity in Australia, with only 1.9 percent of the daily intake of kilojoules for children under 18 coming from soft drinks.

A number of countries have introduced a levy to push up the price of sugar-sweetened drinks. Four years after the implementation of Chile’s sugar tax, University of York research claimed that the levy has driven down the consumption of sugary drinks, and researchers believe that other countries could “take heart” from the findings because they show that the sugar tax incentive does not need to be high in order to have an impact.  

The UK introduced its sugar tax in April. A recent study published in Public Health Nutrition noted that the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB) levy could increase SSB prices by approximately 38 percent, leading to an estimated 26 percent decrease in SSB intake in England. This would, in turn, prevent approximately 370 coronary heart disease deaths and generate approximately 4,490 life years in 2021 across the UK. 

A few weeks after the UK began to enforce its policy, Ireland followed in implementing the measures in a bid to encourage consumers to opt for healthier alternatives and tackle the growing obesity problems facing its population.

In tandem with state intervention in the price of soft drinks, the market has responded to consumer pushes for lower sugar

drinks. Sugar remains a crucial aspect for health in the minds of consumers and industry regarding finding effective formulation solutions. Innova Market Insights data notes that food and beverage products carrying sugar-related claims increased by 13 percent (CAGR, 2013-2017), with soft drinks being the leading category.

As the spotlight has continued to shine on the negative effects of sugar consumption, the dream of sugar reduction has prompted the growth of innovations in sweetener use.

One such example is UK-based Magellan Life Sciences, which is scaling up its production of brazzein to respond to the increased interest that the UK sugar tax brought on natural sweeteners. Brazzein is a sweet-tasting protein which occurs naturally in the West African climbing fruit – oubli (Pentadiplandra brazzeana Baillon).

Amai Proteins is similarly aiming to disrupt the sweetening market by offering sweet proteins that are fit for mass food production. NutritionInsight spoke to Amai Proteins CEO and Founder Dr. Ilan Samish at Future Food-Tech in London. He noted that one of the biggest markets for Amai Proteins is the beverages category since 47 percent of all added sugar in the market occurs in beverages. Although regulatory approval in some areas will still take some time, Samish says the company has had “good talks” with the US FDA and EFSA. 

By Laxmi Haigh