Sugar taxes don't work, let's have more of them!

 

From Food Navigator...

 

Action on Sugar pleads for industry action as global study connects soft drink consumption to teenage obesity

Teenagers’ overconsumption of soft drinks has been directly associated with the prevalence of overweight and obesity in a global study. Soft drink consumption contributes to at least 12% of the variations in overweight and obesity rates among adolescents across different countries.

 

Alas, there was apparently no room in the article to mention that the study was produced by the chairman of Action on Sugar, Graham 'Mad Dog' MacGregor and his colleagues.

In light of the study, conducted by the Wolfson Institute, Queen Mary University of London, Action on Sugar, another university division, cautions that there is a dire need to implement effective strategies such as the Soft Drinks Industry Levy to reduce the consumption of such beverages.

To see how "effective" sugar taxes are, one only needs to read MacGregor's study...

 

Approximately 17.2% (95% CI, 17.0%-17.5%) of all the school-going adolescents were overweight or obese, and the population-weighted prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescent students in countries and regions with soft drink taxes was marginally higher compared with those in countries and regions without soft drink taxes (17.4% [95% CI, 17.1%-17.7%] vs 16.3% [95% CI, 15.9%-16.8%]; P = .05).

 

Great success!

 

It seems, however, that countries which tax sugary drinks have fewer people consuming them.

 

... in countries with soft drink taxes, the prevalence of daily soft drink consumption among school-going adolescents was lower than in countries without such taxes (30.2% vs 33.5%).

 

This obviously didn't lead to less obesity but the authors call on governments to tax sugary drinks anyway.

 

These findings suggest that governments, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries, should take actions such as levying taxes on soft drinks to lower soft drink consumption or to reduce the amount of sugar consumption from soft drinks, to help curb the rapid increase in obesity.

 

These taxes have never curbed the rapid increase in obesity anywhere but, as I've said many, many times, the nanny state racket is not a results-driven business.