Thursday 16 January 2014

Big Sugar

Britain is on track to become the first developed nation where more than the half the population is obese by 2050. The adult obesity rate continues to rise, topping the scales at 25% of the population. That figure conceals the fact the only 34% of the population has a healthy body mass index. Two out of three adults are overweight, one in four are so overweight it will seriously harm their health and probably shorten their life span by up to ten years. These are the findings of a new report by the the National Obesity Forum.

Now what surprised me most about this new report from was not the data and predictions it contained. You only need walk down the high street to see that many of our citizens are already putting the Great back into Britain. And I suspect I'm not alone in noticing that teenagers have silly haircuts, ridiculous dress sense and questionable music taste but that they are also... how shall we say it politely... bigger.

Unless you are a paid lobbyist for a junk food company, let's assume that we all agree Britain is getting fatter. What was really unusual about the report and the linked debate about the role of sugar in our diet, was the vitriolic response from right-wingers. I counted three articles, in The Telegraph, The Spectator,  and the Mail, by different authors which asserted that weight gain was about individual willpower and poor choices. They didn't present any facts for their claims; they were however keen to say rude things about fat people.

When presented with a national health catastrophe which is going to blight the lives of millions, my first reaction would not be to start calling people names. But for some reason, those on the right of the political spectrum get very angry indeed if anyone tries to frame the debate in terms of harm reduction and effective policy. Perhaps pouring scorn on the overweight helps satisfy some ideological imperative or a personal need to abuse others, but it's a lousy basis for getting results.

Hang on though, isn't weight gain all about lack of self-control? I'd say the evidence suggests otherwise. From the late 1970s, Britain, like America has conducted an experiment in nutrition. A wealth of data suggests that exercise levels and calorie intake have not changed significantly since the seventies, what is different is the amount of refined sugar we eat in our diet. Lab rats subjected to the same diet change become morbidly obese and develop diabetes; some even get liver failure. Many adults in the Western world are eating over 150g of sugar day or taking one quarter their calories in the form sucrose or fructose. That's especially worrying because a calorie is not a calorie, i.e. the body has to work harder to extract energy from protein and fat, compared to sugar. Sugar is an immediate powerful hit, it is a 'rush' of energy.

I can remember from my childhood that sweets were an occasional treat. My pocket money was enough for a copy of 2000AD, a can of Coke and a Curly Wurly - that was it for the week. These days many children consume chocolate bars and sugary drinks daily. Adults do the same, constantly grazing on sugar in a myriad of forms. Don't take my word for it, watch the video below, where Dr Lustig explains how fructose in particular affects the body. His central point is that it behaves like alcohol and causes a similar level of harm.We treat sugar as if it's normal foodstuff, whereas it should come with a serious health warning.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Why then are then public health messages so contradictory? Most people will parrot the phrase 'five a day', assuming that healthy eating means consuming five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, even if some of those portions are fruit smoothies. Breaking news: the 'five a day' slogan was invented by Californian fruit growers. A better health message would be eat plenty of vegetables, some fruit and don't eat processed food - the Mediterranean diet in other words. But we don't hear that message because the makers of smoothies, who also produce carbonated sweet drinks, are big corporate donors to those framing health policy. They would rather the public didn't realise that a smoothie has very little nutritional value (as the fibre is gone) and in same cases more sugar than a can of soft drink.

So coming back those furious rants by right wing journalists, that I mentioned earlier. There's another reason they would rather call overweight people names . If they accept that refined sugar is dangerous and potentially habit forming, then there is yet another scandal for modern capitalism. In the same way that the banks privatised the gains and socialised the losses for their toxic business model, big sugar interests have taken the profits for themselves, whilst dumping the costs on the public purse.

But the general public are also complicit in the great sugar binge. Dress it up as vintage fairy cake or a Victoria sponge, it is still a great big lump of sugar. Cupcakes may be aching on trend, especially when served by a hipster in full forties garb, it still doesn't make them good for you. Eat too much of it regularly, you will gain weight, get diabetes and die early. It sets up a cycle of craving and bingeing in the body that mimics other addictive substances.

The first step to beating a problem is accepting what it is. Sugar is addicitive and deadly.
Let's tax it the way we would any harmful substance and treat it with caution. The alternative is ruined and shortened lives, which is a high price to pay for cheap sugar.