Thirty-five health organisations have united to put an eight-pronged action plan to the Federal Government, which includes a 20% tax on sugary beverages. From The ABC:
Obesity Policy Coalition [OPC] executive manager Jane Martin said obesity was having a dire effect on the nation’s physical and economic wellbeing.
“We have a really urgent and serious health problem, with 63 per cent of adults and 23 per cent of children above the healthy weight,” she said…The OPC and Deakin University’s Global Obesity Centre led the group of community and public health specialists and academics in forming the plan, called Tipping the Scales…
Time-based restrictions on junk food television advertising for children and a 20 per cent “health levy” on sugary drinks are key recommendations, but the plan also calls for more funding for public education campaigns, a national obesity taskforce and mandatory health-star ratings on food by 2019.
Ms Martin said the plan targeted the causes of obesity, rather than treating poor health once obesity sets in…
Ms Martin said the annual cost of obesity to the economy in 2011-12 was estimated to be $6.8 billion and no single measure would work alone.
The Grattan Institute’s report entitled A sugary drinks tax Recovering the community costs of obesity showed that more than one in four Australian adults are classified as obese – up from one in ten in the early 1980s – whereas 7% of Australian children are now obese:
In addition to personal costs, Grattan showed that obese people receive more healthcare than other people, with taxpayers funding most of the costs of those services at a cost of around $5.3 billion in 2014-15:
. Grattan also estimated that about 10% of Australia’s obesity problem is due to sugar sweetened beverages.
Regular readers will know that I support a tax on sugary drinks although, like the Grattan Institute, I recognise that it is by no means a panacea.
What does concern me is the Obesity Policy Coalition’s call for “mandatory health-star ratings on food by 2019”.
In my opinion, there also needs to be a complete overhaul of Australia’s dietary guidelines, including Australia’s Health Star Rating System, which too often ignores the prevalence of sugar while demonising natural saturated fats.
Consider the below examples from the Government’s Health Star Rating system and the National Heart Foundation Tick program, which are both fundamentally flawed.
How is it that reconstituted apple juice, which contains a whopping 26.8 grams of free sugars per serve, receives a 5-star health rating?
Similarly, how does a highly processed box of cereal, like the one shown below, receive a healthy 4-star rating and the Heart Foundation Tick despite containing 23.5% sugar?
How does a processed sugary chocolate-flavoured “Up and Go” milkshake, which contains 19.3 grams of sugar per serve, receive a healthy 4.5 star health rating?
How does Milo receive a healthy 4.5 star health rating when it is made up of nearly half sugar?
How does a sugary processed “Roll-up”, which contains 26.7% sugar, somehow receive a 3-star rating:
On the flipside, where is the logic or evidence to support giving natural virgin coconut oil – chock full of beneficial medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) – a half star rating because it is 90% saturated fat:
Or natural full fat Greek yogurt only 1.5 stars, because it contains ‘high’ saturated fat:
Is there any wonder why sugar consumption is sky-high in Australia, and ‘diabesity’ is a growing epidemic, when our nutritional science establishment largely ignores sugar’s infestation within our food?
Moreover, given the above flaws, how would making health star ratings mandatory by 2019 create better health outcomes?
Rather than extending a farcical Health Star Ratings system, Australia’s policy makers should simply encourage Australians to avoid packaged and processed foods in favour of natural whole foods.
