UK sugar tax worked to cut sugar consumption by 50%; wants to implement more taxes

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Children’s daily sugar consumption halved just a year after tax, study finds

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The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found.

The tax, which came into force in April 2018, has been so successful in improving people’s diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar food and drink products is now a “no-brainer”

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The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at responses from 7,999 adults and 7,656 children between 2008 and 2019 to the annual nationally representative UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. It showed that the daily sugar intake for children fell by about 4.8g, and for adults 10.9g, in the year after the levy’s introduction.

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But despite this reduction, the amount of sugar consumed by adults and children still remains above the recommended guidelines and is contributing to high levels of tooth decay, obesity, diabetes and other illnesses.

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Eddie Crouch, the chair of the British Dental Association, said that the sugar tax was delivering “tangible results” and was effective.

He added: “Extending it to the likes of cereals is a no-brainer for any government that cares about prevention. This needn’t add to the cost of living. Where voluntary action on reformulation has failed, the levy forces the food industry to do the right thing.”

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