Sugar tax won’t help the overweight, poll finds

More than eight out of 10 slimmers (84%) do not believe that a sugar tax would have helped them to make healthier choices at their heaviest and only one in 25 (4%) believe it would be the best way to help people cut down on sugar, the Slimming World poll revealed.

Slimming World was testing measures put forward by Public Health England in their recent sugar report* and found that while there was wide support for healthier food in hospitals and leisure centres (62%), reformulation of everyday food and drinks (60%) and fewer special offers on unhealthy food (54%), the proposed sugar tax was thought to be the least likely to succeed by the 1,254 respondents, with only 16% voting for it.

However, while few slimmers believed that a sugar tax would have had a positive impact on them, 64% said they would support it if the money raised was spent on helping people to improve their health. The most popular uses for money raised through a sugar tax would be subsidising the cost of fruit and vegetables (56%), improving NHS services (43%) and increasing the availability of healthy school meals (31%).

Dr Jacquie Lavin, Head of Nutrition and Research for Slimming World, says: “High sugar food and drink is often relatively cheap, easily available and heavily advertised. It can certainly contribute to people’s weight struggles and our poll showed that nine out of 10 slimmers (92%) would support some of the measures suggested to help people cut down.

“In recent months there has been so much focus on the sugar tax that other recommendations to reduce sugar intake have almost been forgotten. Obesity is not going to be solved by a sugar tax alone though, it’s far too complex an issue for that.

“We need a whole range of public health measures to create the healthy environment that society both wants and needs. We need to make it easier and more desirable for people to make healthy choices with food and activity and many of the measures suggested by Public Health England would support that, not just the sugar tax.

“However, we also need to give people the knowledge, tools and confidence to make healthier choices for themselves, so that they feel able to take personal responsibility for their lifestyles. Our research shows that when people are given the right information and support they do make healthier choices, even in an environment that is geared towards encouraging the opposite. Our poll showed that nine out of 10 Slimming World members have reduced their sugar intake through making changes like basing their eating around healthy, filling foods like fruit and vegetables, pasta, potatoes, fish and lean meat, reducing how much sweet food they have and swapping sugar for sweetener.

“Introducing a sugar tax in isolation won’t have as significant an impact as putting a whole range of public health and education measures into place. As our member poll suggests, to tackle obesity successfully we need a much broader strategy and raft of policies than simply taxing sugar.”

Slimming World’s poll was conducted to mark the start of its ‘Free Food February’ campaign, which celebrates healthy foods that Slimming World members can eat ‘freely’ without counting, weighing or measuring, while still losing weight. They include fruit and vegetables, pasta, potatoes, rice, eggs, beans, pulses, fish, poultry and lean meat.

* Sugar reduction: the evidence for action – Public Health England - October 2015

The below table lists Public Health England’s eight recommendations to reduce sugar intake and the proportion of Slimming World members who said that this would have helped them to reduce their sugar intake before they lost weight.