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Children’s daily sugar intake halved’ one year after levy on industry
The Guardian
|July 10, 2024
The amount of sugar being consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the introduction of the sugar tax on industry, a study has found.
The tax, which came into force in April 2018, has been so successful in improving diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar food and drink products is now a "no-brainer".
The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at responses from 7,999 adults and 7,656 children between 2018 and 2019 to the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey.
The annual survey showed that the daily sugar intake for children fell by about 4.8g, and for adults 10.9g, in the year after introduction of the levy on manufacturers.
The total dietary free sugars, including in food and drink taken by children, was about 70g a day at the beginning of the study, but this fell to about 45g by the end. With adults, the study found that that the total dietary free sugar consumption stood at about 60g a day, and fell to about 45g a day by the end of the study.
This story is from the July 10, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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