The British government is doing too little to combat rising issues with childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes, argues Gary Taubes. Relying on voluntary sugar reduction won't solve the massive problems - but treating sugar like cigarettes could get the job done:
The Guardian: For Children's Health, the Government Has to Treat Sugar Like CigarettesLet's use cigarettes and lung cancer as our pedagogical example, confident, as we are, that cigarettes cause lung cancer. Cigarette consumption in the UK peaked in the mid-1970s when half of all men smoked and over 40% of women. Together they averaged 17 cigarettes a day. Now let's imagine that we didn't get those smokers to quit, but we managed to cut their consumption by 20%. Instead of 17 cigarettes a day, they're averaging 14.
Would we expect to see a decrease in lung cancer prevalence? Would we expect that the lung cancer epidemic would be curbed at all, let alone within a few years of peak consumption? I would wager that even the PHE authorities would acknowledge that such a change would have little effect.
