Jamie Oliver and Professional Nutrition Bodies Plead With Ministers to Introduce Sugar Tax

20 Oct 2015 --- Jamie Oliver and the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy (BANT) were amongst the professionals pleading with David Cameron and the rest of Parliament to be “brave” in introducing a sugar tax at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Diabetes (APPGD) meeting in Parliament yesterday.

The APPGD is one of the most active parliamentary groups in engaging with stakeholders, sharing information with Members and holding high profile events in the Houses of Parliament. Amongst his statements, Jamie Oliver said that governments over the past 30 years had done "an incredible disservice to children" but also said the food and drinks industries did not provide enough clarity for families to make well-informed decisions about sugar in their diets.

It is widely appreciated that the introduction of low fat foods from the 1960’s onwards has greatly contributed to the current worldwide obesity pandemic because of the replacement of fats with sugars to make those foods more palatable. Complex metabolic changes occur in the body when too much sugar is released into the bloodstream, triggering a cascade of reactions in the body which lead ultimately to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and obesity. Because of the complex hormonal changes that take place it is almost impossible purely through willpower to reverse the effects and eating habits, which is one of the reasons why the government are being asked to intervene, just as they did with alcohol and tobacco laws and taxes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) regards childhood obesity as one of the most serious global public health challenges for the 21st century. The latest figures in England, for 2013/14, show that 19.1% of children aged 10-11 were obese and a further 14.4% were overweight.

Malcolm Clark from the Children’s Food Campaign, who was also present at the APPGD said that in an ideal world, the government would introduce many strategies to combat the obesity crisis, including tax regulations for marketing junk food to the under 16’s, better labelling, introducing changes via their European partners, curbing price promotions on junk food and offering support to teachers and food education. Whilst none of these are radical moves, he said, added up they will have a great impact.

He says, “The most important thing about the APPGD meeting was the presence of forty plus MP’s coming to hear the arguments for the case for a sugary drink tax. Tax is a hard thing to sell but the willingness from MP’s to listen to and hear evidence and have a debate is exciting.”

“The meeting was sponsored by diabetes and heart disease but also by nutrition experts BANT, all demanding action. All of that coming together was crucial and BANT and others put out a strong message in showing their consensus and asking to be joined.” Keith Vaz, labour MP and Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said he “values tremendously the input of BANT – their work is key to the group.”

BANT have recently launched their wellbeing guidelines which are based on the latest nutritional research. BANT’s Chair Miguel Toribio-Mateas, who was present at the meeting said, “being asked to join the APPGD as a key stakeholder for nutrition represents a significant step forward for BANT and Registered Nutritional Therapists. It means that our message about outdated one-size-fits-all dietary advice, and about prevention before treatment, is finally being heard in the right places, by the right people. I would like to ask where the evidence in support of cake and cola is, and why we’ve been told for the last 20 years that they were part of a healthy diet. Unlike any existing guidelines, ours have been produced by a panel of experts based on 2015 science that tackles 2015 issues. They reflect the feedback of various stakeholders who responded to the public consultation in September/October 2014, and favour no industry interest.”

However, while a sugar tax is an important first step, Toribio-Mateas says BANT would like to drive policy change by focusing too on the effects of fructose, suggesting that that the 5 a day logo has no association with the food industry and that fruit juice and smoothies should be removed from their inclusion in 5 a day. His concern is that people will simply swap sugary soda drinks for fruit juices, which may be just as detrimental for health.

Finland introduced a sugar tax of 70p per kilo in 2011, expected to raise £81m this year, but has announced it will be scrapping the tax in 2017 because the European Commission has told ministers that the tax unfairly favours Finnish producers, because imported sweets have to pay it on top of import duties. Therefore European support for sugar taxes are crucial to make them work. Jamie Oliver has said he would like to see money raised from a UK sugar tax going towards the NHS and primary schools for better lunches and education.

The BANT wellbeing guidelines can be downloaded here http://bant.org.uk/about-nutritional-therapy/bant-wellbeing-guidelines/

By Coriander Stone