Time to call on obesity and type 2 diabetes

Professor Graham MacGregor, President of Action on Sugar, discusses the need to end excessive sugar consumption while investigating obesity and type 2 diabetes

In the past five years, we have worked with the food industry and the government on the adverse health effects of excessive sugar consumption and other causes of obesity.

Although positive progress has been made, it is clear that these policies are not yet sufficient to reverse the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes – not to mention various cancers, heart disease and related tooth decay.

If Theresa May and her ministers finally want to tackle this "glaring injustice" of health inequities, we need a much more robust and hard-hitting plan to take effect immediately.

The government-led sugar reduction program is a step in the right direction, asking companies to eliminate 20% of sugar by 2020 in the nine categories of food most consumed by them. children. However, there are exit clauses for the food industry with no apparent penalties for non-compliance.

While these goals are a way to encourage companies to reformulate their activities and add healthier options, they should be made mandatory, not voluntary. In addition, it is not planned to set any other sugar reduction targets (baduming that current targets are achieved by 2020).

The following strategies are imperative if we want to see meaningful and lasting change. The government should be encouraged to extend the tax on soft drinks to include a tax on energy density on confectionery, to ensure that the mandatory nutrition labeling of menus and packaging in the sector out of home be implemented as a result of the recent consultation and the expected consultation on marketing restrictions includes strong proposals to ban the marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar. In addition, setting mandatory goals for reducing the huge salt, fat and sugar content of many processed foods could make all the difference.

To put this in context, cigarette advertising has been banned in the United Kingdom for many years because of cancer and cardiovascular disease, but it can be argued that unhealthy foods and beverages pose an even greater threat.

It is estimated that obesity is responsible for more than 30,000 deaths each year, depriving an average person a further nine years of life and preventing many from reaching retirement age. In fact, obesity may soon overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable death.

Despite this, products can still be advertised without strict restrictions for vulnerable children. It is surely both unethical and irresponsible?

The government must also recognize that fats contribute more to the calories in the diet than sugar and ensure that the fat and calorie reduction program removes 20% of calories from food by 2024. This should be focused on saturated fats, especially palm oil. this will have the added benefit of lowering cholesterol levels as well as the total number of calories.

We all know that the numbers are alarming: half of Britons will be obese in thirty years and doing nothing is simply not an option. We now need strict measures to ensure compliance and put public health ahead of the profits of the food industry.