Health experts demand 30% reduction in food sugar content

Sugar is the primary food and drink component which is causing havoc for Britain’s obesity crisis, health experts claim.

The scientists and doctors behind ‘Action on Sugar’ – which is modelled on the 1990s group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) – are hoping to put enough pressure on the government and industry enough to help enforce as much as a 30% sugar reduction in food and drink products. Cash, chaired by Professor Graham MacGregor, who also heads Action on Sugar, managed to bring down salt levels in our food and the hope is a similar impact can be had on our sugar levels.

The say that with a 20-30% reduction in sugar content, this could slash calorie intake by about 100kcal a day and this figure could be much higher for those who have a high sugar intake each day.
Instead of drastically cutting sugar in one clean swoop, Action on Sugar argue for a gradual decrease in the amount of sugar within ready meals, cereals, sweets and soft drinks, as this is less likely to be noticed by the general public. Basically, it would be comparable to weaning people off sugar!

Professor MacGregor says: “This is a simple plan which gives a level playing field to the food industry, and must be adopted by the Department of Health to reduce the completely unnecessary and very large amounts of sugar the food and soft drink industry is currently adding to our foods…Provided the sugar reductions are done slowly, people won’t notice. In most products in the supermarkets, the salt has come down by between 25% and 40%.”

Dr Aseem Malhotra, cardiologist and science director of Action on Sugar, said: “Added sugar has no nutritional value whatsoever and causes no feeling of satiety. Aside from being a major cause of obesity, there is increasing evidence that added sugar increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver.”

To try and ease the obesity crisis, the government’s strategy so far has been to reduce targeted marketing and calorie reduction, mainly done through the public health responsibility deal.
MacGregor says it is not enough though and has had little bearing on calorie intake. He says “We must start to slowly reduce the amount of calories people consume by slowly taking out added sugar from foods and soft drinks.”

But the food and drink industry is obviously fighting its corner and has argued it is unfair to pinpoint sugar as the cause of the obesity crisis gripping the UK.

The Food and Drink Federation commented: “Sugars, or any other nutrient for that matter, consumed as part of a varied and balanced diet are not a cause of obesity, to which there is no simple or single solution. That’s why the food industry has been working on a range of initiatives with other players to tackle obesity and diet-related diseases.”

They also argue that consumers can clearly see the sugar content of the products they are buying, with manufacturers being forced to adhere to strict regulations for this, adding that the industry has already lowered salt and saturated fats, with little concrete proof that sugar is particularly damaging.

Children’s poor diets lead to rise in rickets and scurvy

Doctors in the United Kingdom are becoming increasingly concerned about just how poor our children’s diets have become and have warned that youngsters’ diets are now even worse than those seen during the previous world war – almost 70 years ago, when food was rationed.

After war was declared in September 1939, the British government strategized a rationing plan as German submarines began attacking British supply ships. There was a huge worry of a mass food shortage in shops, and that people would hoard food – leaving none for others.

Food rationing in Britain began in 1940 and meant that each person was only permitted to buy a set amount of certain foods per week, exchanging coupons from a ration book, as well as money, in return for your goods.

After the wartime rationing began, the typical allowance each week for one person was: one fresh egg; 4oz margarine and bacon (about four rashers); 2oz butter and tea; 1oz cheese; and 8oz sugar.
However, because of a sparse supply of fresh fruit and veg during the Second World War, there were outbreaks of rickets and scurvy; both bone-related diseases.

Scurvy is a rare condition that develops with an insufficient amount of vitamin C in your diet. Vitamin C is crucial for the body to produce collagen – a protein within different types of tissue, such as: skin, blood vessels, bones and cartilage (which cover the surface of joints). Without vitamin C, collagen can’t be replaced, resulting in a breakdown of tissue. This then causes symptoms of scurvy, which include:

. Joint and muscular pain.
. Feeling tired and weak a lot of the time.
. Small red-blue spots appearing on the skin.
. Swollen gums, which then soften up and bleed.
. Teeth may feel loose or fall out.

Rickets is a disease that hinders bone development in children, causing their bones to soften and become weak and may result in bowed or curved bones. A deficiency of calcium and vitamin D from foods such as oily fish and eggs is usually the cause of rickets. The symptoms include:

. Soft skull bones or skull deformities.
. Teeth taking a long time to come through.
. Weak tooth enamel, eventually leading to tooth decay.
. Growth problems – children shorter than expected for their age.
.  Painful bones that are affected by the disease so the child may become tired or reluctant to walk.

Health chiefs are now concerned that the typical modern day diets of UK children are so poor that these two diseases, common during the food rationing period nearly 70 years ago, are on the increase. A lack of fruit and veg, high intake of fast foods and microwave meals are all being blamed.

Dr Mark Temple, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health medicine committee, warned: “Food standards in the UK are worse now that they were during the rationing during the war. That’s a strong indictment on the food industry. Obesity is a major health threat and we ought to be doing something about it.”

Dietician Sioned Quirke, who works in the Rhondda Valleys in South Wales, commented on the issue, saying: “For some population groups diet and nutrition has reverted back to being as poor as it was 100 years ago. The difference between now and then is that this is out of choice. People say that fruit and vegetables are not affordable when in fact they are. Rickets and scurvy are coming back. When I was training 10 years ago we were told about these as past conditions and thought we would not come across them. These conditions are long-term. If the bones are affected by vitamin deficiency then they are affected for life.”

Traffic light food labelling system given green light

A voluntary new universal food labelling system aimed at making it easier and quicker for consumers to make healthier food choices was announced yesterday by the government.

It is one of many initiatives that health ministers are hoping will be affective at reducing the billions of pounds the NHS lose annually due to the nation’s poor diet, leading to an ever-increasing number of obesity-related health conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

The overhaul on how a product’s nutritional information is displayed was agreed upon by the government, food manufacturers and food retailers. The standardised front-of-label packaging will be introduced by December 2014 by those parties who have agreed to sign up to the changes.

Currently, food and drink manufacturers are not forced into stating nutritional information, and as such, those that do decide to state it can vary in what information they give. One of the biggest complaints consumers have about so many differing food labels is that they are simply confusing.

The vast variety of labels has been attributed to growing customer demand for more nutritional information; however there has never been an agreement on a consistent system for displaying this information – until now. The new labelling system will therefore enable people to compare similar foods to easier select the healthier option.

Presently, nutritional information can be stated either on the back, side or on the front of packaging. However, the new standardised labels for food and drink and drink products will be clearly displayed on the front of the product and consumers will be quickly able to see the amount of energy in kilojoules (kJ) contained, in addition to kilocalories (kcal) – known as calories, fat and saturated fat content, the amount of sugar and the amount of salt. ‘Guideline Daily Amounts’ will disappear and the amounts of each will now be explained as ‘Reference Intakes’.

Those amounts will be accompanied with how much of the maximum daily intake a portion of food accounts for. The already commonly used traffic light system for food labelling will be deemed the standard display for a quick glance at a product’s nutritional value in regards to fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt – Red means high, amber means medium and green means low.

The voluntary new scheme, part of the government’s ‘Responsibility Deal’, has received positive feedback from supermarkets and manufacturers that had showed disdain for changes in the past.
Nestle, Mars, PepsiCo, Premier Foods and McCain have all signed up, together with major supermarkets accounting for 60% of food sales in the UK; Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, the Co-operative and Waitrose.

Speaking about the new food labelling, Public Health Minister Anna Soubry said: “The UK already has the largest number of products using a front of pack label in Europe but we know that people get confused by the variety of labels that are used. Research shows that, of all the current schemes, people like this label the most and they can use the information to make healthier choices. We all have a responsibility to tackle the challenge of obesity, including the food industry. By having all major retailers and manufacturers signed up to the consistent label, we will all be able to see at a glance what is in our food – this is why I want to see more manufacturers signing up and using the label.”

Which? Executive Director, Richard Lloyd, also commented about the issue, saying: “For years Which? has been calling for food companies to use traffic light labels so we welcome this big step forward towards making it easier for consumers to make healthy choices. With levels of obesity and diet-related disease on the increase, it’s vitally important that people know what is in their food, and this labelling scheme will encourage food companies to do more to reduce the amount of sugar, salt and fat in popular products. We hope that more food manufacturers will join the scheme so that their labels will be consistent and comparable to those on the front of the retailers’ own packs.”

Australia’s obesity rates are on the rise

The UK and U.S. are two of the most obvious nations that spring to mind associated with the words: ‘obesity crisis’. However, there are numerous other countries in the developed world that are also apparently fighting a battle against the bulge.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Reform Council has today released its fourth report on the National Healthcare Agreement, showing that although smoking rates appear to be slightly improving, there are a ‘staggering’ number of Australians who are now overweight or obese.

According to statistics within the report, during the period 2011-12, a shocking 63% of Australians were either overweight or obese. This figure had risen by 2% from the four years prior to this. In total, it was determined 35% of the population were overweight and 28% were obese. Moreover, 7.6% of children in Australia were deemed obese, with an extra 17.7% being overweight.

According to NHS definitions, you are overweight if you have a body mass index (BMI) that is between 25 and 29. A BMI of between 30 and 40, results in an ‘obese’ classification.  Obesity levels for the whole of the UK could be comparable after a survey published in 2012 discovered that approximately just over a quarter of all adults (26%) in England are classified as obese. In addition, around 61.3% of adults in England either overweight or obese and 30% of children aged between 2 and 15. All statistics for England appear to roughly match those found in the new Australian report.

The COAG chairman John Brumby, was dismayed by Australia’s weight problem, saying: “It’s concerning to see that so many Australians are overweight or obese.”

The report has also urged the government to start taking the issue of obesity more seriously and take steps to tackle the problem, “but the fact that the situation is getting worse suggests that it needs urgent attention from our governments to prevent flow-on effects across the system. The news here is something that should be of concern to us all and concern to policy makers across Australia. We all know that obesity is contributing to the burden of chronic disease in Australia. It affects individuals, it affects workplaces, it affects productivity,” says Brumby.

The findings were not all doom and gloom however, and Brumby was clearly delighted with what he described as the ‘stand out result’ – a sustained decline in Australia’s national daily smoking rate in 2011-12 to 16.5%.

In 2007-08 this figure stood at 19.1% and in 1989-90 it was 28.4%, so progress is gradually being made and the number is slowly moving towards COAG’s aim of just 10% by the year 2018.

Calls for tax on fizzy drinks to ease UK obesity epidemic

Doctors have spoken out on ways that the UK obesity epidemic could be tackled as Brits continue to pile on the pounds. They are calling for fizzy drinks to be heavily taxed, the number of fast food outlets close by to schools and colleges to be severely limited, as well as pre-watershed junk food advertising to be completely banished.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC), who represent almost every one of the 220,000 UK doctors, say rapidly expanding waistlines are a ‘huge crisis’ and have caused them to create their own action plan on how to fight the problem. In their report, the AMRC state that existing measures have been unsuccessful at affecting obesity levels and argue that unhealthy food should be viewed in the same light as cigarettes.

Professor Terence Stephenson, the chair of the Academy, said: “That required things like a ban on advertising and a reduction in marketing and the association of smoking with sporting activities – that helped people move away from smoking. I choose what I eat or whether I smoke, what people have told us is they want help to swim with the tide rather than against the current to make the healthy choice the easy one.”

Therefore, the AMRC propose a number of solutions that include 20% tax being implemented on sugary soft drinks for at least a period of a year – urging ministers, councils, the NHS and food organisations to take action against what it deems to be ‘the greatest public health crisis affecting the UK’.

Its recommendations include:

. No advertising on foods high in saturated fat, sugar and salt prior to 9pm.

. More taxes on sugary drinks to increase prices by at least 20%.

. Less fast food outlets near schools, colleges, leisure centres and other places where children convene.

. A £100m budget set aside interventions such as weight-loss surgery.

. Junk food and vending machines in hospitals to be banned, where all food must meet the same nutritional standards as in schools.

. Food labels to include calorie information for children.

Other recommendations suggestions include NHS staff discussing with overweight patients about their eating and exercise tendencies and guidance for new parents on how best to feed their children.

The academy’s new proposals have finally been released after a year-long investigation into the country’s obesity epidemic. It is now estimated that one in four adults (around 26%) in England is obese – I.e. with a body mass index that is between 30 and 40. Even worse, health experts predict that by the year 2050, 60% of all men will be obese in addition to half of women and a quarter of children.

The following graph demonstrates how the obesity levels within the UK have been steadily rising in recent years:


Prof Stephenson added that the new ideas will not offer a full solution to the UK’s obesity crisis, and continued to criticise sugary drinks for being nothing more than ‘just water and sugar’. He put forth his dismay at a culture where it is the norm for somebody to casually consume a litre of fizzy drink at the cinema. A tax would help to ‘encourage people to drink more healthy drinks’ he said.