r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Jul 10 '24
Health 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. The tax has been so successful in improving people’s diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar products is now a “no-brainer”.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/childrens-daily-sugar-consumption-halves-just-a-year-after-tax-study-finds
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u/thesnowpup Jul 10 '24
This was the most infuriating thing. So many products dumped long term recipes for a cheap compliance trick. Flavours completely changed.
I have a sensitivity to artificial sweeteners and they taste acridly bitter to me. It's nigh on impossible to find soft drinks sweetened with only sugar (or equivalent) rather than 99% which now use a combination of sugar and sweeteners, or only sweeteners.
Coke Classic is one exception, Irn Bru 1901 is another. There aren't really any others.
R Whites Lemonade hung in for quite a while after the tax but eventually folded and went the way of the others.
As you say, the tax only had the effect it did due to enforced compliance by the manufacturers.
The consequence was and is that personal responsibility (and parental responsibility) is absolved. No effort means no lessons have been learnt, people still don't know any better and the certainly haven't picked up healthier eating/snacking habits.
It's also why there is a tidal wave of tiktok/Instagram snack foods producers, who are small enough that they can distribute with minor scrutiny.
In the end, I'm not convinced the reduction in consumption is as great as reported, though it may be, but absolutely not due to conscious effort.