The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found.
Children’s sugar consumption halved since tax announcement, study finds
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22143130
Has it improved health or reduced obesity, though? That's kind of the interesting thing, here. What has happened to overall calorie consumption?
Holy shit. Parents should be really embarrassed about this. It wasn't Timmy buying deadly sugar solution because it was the cheapest thing that's not water.
That's the only logical conclusion from the correlation with tax, right?
The other conclusion could also be, that Timmies parents just do not have enough money anymore to spend this on a daily basis on that sugar bombs. Lack of money and lack of education often going hand in hand.
It is heartbreaking to see that some parents should never had become children. If they endanger their kids BC/ they are not able to distinguish between information and advertising on that level. I think we're doomed as a society for exactly that reason. These are exactly the people voting for brexit, Trump or Nazi scumbags in Europe.
Everything about public health policy sucks. The best way to improve nutrition and health is by making eating healthy affordable and easy. It’s too hard and expensive for working people to prepare healthy meals for a family also working 40+ hours a week.
So many myths and pseudoscience around health, wellness, etc. Basically everything that is talked about is based on really shaky science at best, and outright lies and nonsense at worst. Way too much emphasis is put on weight loss, dieting, waist circumference and so on. Dieting is hugely unhealthy, weight cycling (losing and regaining weight) has worse health implications than just remaining at your original weight, and for most people the weight they are is fine, the health risks around weight are hugely overstated. The BMI is a worthless metric without any scientific basis. Almost everything that people say about sugar is wrong - it’s not physiologically addictive, it doesn’t cause hyperactivity and it’s not poisonous, and it doesn’t cause type 2 diabetes - the causes of type 2 diabetes are generally not well understood.
The most important thing is having a varied diet with some fruit and vegetables and getting some regular activity - something that you enjoy! Doesn’t have to be major or whatever, if it’s just going for a walk or paintball or whatever, that’s great!
Fad diets are hugely unhealthy, in general, and should be avoided.
Healthy food doesn't get advertising or status symbolism. When's the last time you saw an ad for cabbage, carrots, or dry lentils?
The affordability is less of a problem than you think.
If healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, etc. were subsidised instead of animal products then they’d essentially be free. Affordability is a huge problem, at least here in the UK. Thousands of people use food banks because they’re struggling with the cost of living. vegan btw
Time to plan, shop for food, and cook. Time is the only thing separating the healthy and unhealthy. It's a travesty.
That measures an effect, not an outcome. Is the goal to improve health, or to sell less sugary drinks? All of the evidence we have around using low-calorie sweeteners is that it does not displace the consumption of other dietary sugars, because there is a compensatory effect.
I invite you to point out what part of my advice you consider to be “shitty”, and back up your case with evidence - because I actually know what I’m talking about.
I feel like you're taking a grain of truth way too far. The diet-health connection is subtle and poorly understood, but being morbidly obese or eating a really unvaried, processed diet are definitely known to cause harm.
BMI is shitty because it's too coarse a measure at the individual level. Unfortunately a volumetric scan to measure internal visceral fat just isn't as convenient.
Yep, and all our pop now tastes like ass with the vile sweeteners so fewer people drink it.
A lot of people don’t seem to mind it, but to me it really tastes terrible. Even if I got it for free I wouldn’t drink it.
Drink water.
The choice between sugar and aspartame is the choice between diabetes and cancer.
Just give it up. Pop ain’t worth it.
Fuck this, people should be able to drink soda if they want to. We're on a dying planet, this just penalizes poor people and takes away their choices. Let people have a moment of pleasure. You can drink soda and drink water.
🥴🙄Aspartame doesn't cause cancer
Drink water.
Like animals? I rather have beer.
And increased amount of aspartame and asulfate k, that can have an even worse effect on blood sugar than sugar can. Industry still making a killing.
Remind me when they tried to cut CO2 by pushing folk to diesel...
But yeah, only Coca-Cola is really drinkable now as most moved to artificial sweeteners which IMHO taste like chemicals.
Don't know that I agree with your spin that this news is negative in any regard. Also, aspartame is one of the most studied food additives of all time and has been repeatedly proven safe.
Your claim that it "can have an event worse effect on blood sugar than sugar can" has also been proven false. See "Metabolic effects of aspartame in adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials" by Santos et al from 2017.
Among other conclusions, the study found that "aspartame consumption was not associated with alterations on blood glucose levels compared to control or to sucrose and on insulin levels compared to control or to sucrose."
My take wasnt that this is bad news. My take is moving from 1 poison to another is not a good thing. There are studies either way, and it's worth considering where the scientists funding came from. Industry do invest in research for a reason which can result in more studies.
The following summarises some of the risks. While my accuracy wasn't great, the conclusion that aspartame is safe is highly questionable. If you're promoting it like it's a great thing, it's a very bizarre take to have.
Sugar is rubbish, but doesn't make artificial sweeteners good. Best things to drink are water, with maybe occasional fruit juice/smoothie. Not artificial rubbish.
Oh and the World Health Organisation considers aspartame a possible carcinogen. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/aspartame-risks
Football season is good and I've always preferred grass to astroturf. Industry are always gonna push the "there is no proof" until the deaths/illness become hard to ignore and the profit already made.
There are lots of Americans online who believe that artificial sweeteners are great and technology can fix anything, such as replacing the evil of sugar with something else and keeping the nice consumer product.
Most people don't even understand blood sugar levels and are afraid of a line going up. It's pointless to talk to them, they don't want to change and will reject anything that actually means change.
Great, now all the undernourished kids with poor parents are going to drink water instead and lose weight to dangerously unhealthy levels.
According to The Guardian (same source as this article), the number of children in food poverty in the UK is 4 million. 15% of UK households went hungry in January. Now, soda isn't the smartest source of calories in a kid's diet. It's expensive and low in other nutrients. But kids aren't always smart. A poor kid thinks "I'm hungry, I have a few pounds, there's a vending machine, problem solved". If the soda is too expensive, that doesn't mean the kid is going to go to Aldi, buy some potatoes, and roast them for a cheap and nutritious meal. They're a kid! It means they'll pay more or go without. Which means you're making the poverty and malnutrition problem worse.
First of all, the tax is 18-24p per litre. No one is denying their children sodas because they can't afford to pay that.
Secondly, there are a vast number of exceptions. These kids could be getting the sugar you seem to think is necessary for their lives from juice or powdered drinks, which can be just as sugary, if not more so, than sodas. And the latter are usually cheaper.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-your-drink-is-liable-for-the-soft-drinks-industry-levy
WATER, motherfuckers, water
Fish fuck in water.
Word. Soda should have sugar, not artificial sweeteners, and if you get too much sugar from soda you're simply just DRINKING TOO MUCH SODA. Stop it and drink more water.