It seems PM David Cameron has performed spectacular U turn on sugar tax that he vigorously opposed. But now it may become government policy, warned Chief Medical Officer, if food manufacturers do not act and react responsibly, reformulating, resizing, reducing salt and sugar in snacks and ready meals and stop targeting children.
Food industry is already on final warning. Any slip-up will bring in sugar tax even if it may apparently hurt poor families most financially. Consumers feel it will work, forcing manufacturers to drastically cut sugar input. This will improve health; reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes, especially among children and the elderly.
Some may feel this is Nanny State going too far. But in today’s materialistic world, manufacturers’ aim is to increase sale and profit at any cost; people’s health is the last on their list of priorities. A third of children are obese by the time they leave primary school and put youngsters on the slippery road to poor health and life-long dependency on drugs in their adult life. Popular, luminary TV Chef Jamie Oliver feels government is too close to food industry corridor. Such tax has worked in many countries, drastically reducing sales of food with high sugar content, thus forcing manufacturers to corroborate, market healthy foods to maintain their share of this multi-billion pound industry.
Kumudini Valambia
By email
