Britain’s pursuit of sugar reduction and healthier lifestyle

We see them on tele­vi­sion, at the best broad­cast time. They offer knowl­edge and enter­tain­ment at the same time. I’m think­ing of the TV per­son­al­i­ties Michael Mosley and Jamie Oliver.

Two TV profiles

Michael Mosley is a British med­ical jour­nal­ist who, togeth­er with oth­er med­ical experts, is explor­ing dif­fer­ent ways to achieve bet­ter health. He is, among oth­er things, the orig­i­na­tor of the 5: 2 method that involves eat­ing a restrict­ed num­ber of calo­ries two days a week and a bal­anced diet the rest of the week.

Jamie Oliver, best known as the Naked Chef, is cel­e­brat­ed for his cook­ing based on sim­ple and pure ingre­di­ents. Today we can see Jamie Oliver trav­el around the world, often to help peo­ple go back to the kitchen and cook “real” food again. At home, he engages in the British children’s school lunch­es, which until now have not been the most nutri­tious. To eat nutri­tion­al­ly, there is hard­ly any room for fat­ty, salty and sug­ary fin­ished or semi-man­u­fac­tured meals.

Simple – no rocket science

Their tele­vi­sion pro­grams cap­ture mil­lions of view­ers. These are styl­ish, eas­i­ly acces­si­ble pro­duc­tions that can inspire per­son­al change. The tips are smart, but it’s not rock­et sci­ence the British gen­tle­men Oliver and Mosley serve us on the couch. They just show how easy it can be to change the eat­ing habits and behav­iours we keep for convenience.

A sense of urgency

At the same time, the UK gov­ern­ment, author­i­ties and inter­est groups are work­ing their way. They want to influ­ence the food indus­try to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the cri­sis the country’s pop­u­la­tion is facing.

There is a sense of urgency, that is, a feel­ing that the sit­u­a­tion is dif­fi­cult and that it is vital to bring about a change.

The cri­sis is about increas­ing­ly wide­spread obesity.

The problem of obesity must be solved

In August 2017, the Department of Health and Social Care, pub­lished a strong state­ment on Twitter:

20 per cent sugar reduction by 2020

In 2015, the British gov­ern­ment with the sup­port of agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions, made vig­or­ous effort to stop the cri­sis. The goal was to reduce the amount of sug­ar in a num­ber of prod­ucts by 20 per cent by 2020. The reduc­tion should be 5 per cent per year over five years.

The 20 per cent tar­get was set to improve the sit­u­a­tion among British chil­dren, where obe­si­ty is increas­ing fast. One of three chil­dren in the UK is esti­mat­ed to be over­weight or have devel­oped obe­si­ty before leav­ing pri­ma­ry school.

The way out of the cri­sis is about reduc­ing the amount of sug­ar in a num­ber of pop­u­lar, eas­i­ly acces­si­ble and every­day products.

Slowly moving forward

Public Health England (PHE) does annu­al fol­low-ups to inves­ti­gate how the food indus­try lives up to the government’s required sug­ar reduc­tion. This year, the aver­age reduc­tion was only 2 per cent.

Products such as yoghurt, quark, break­fast cere­als and sweet top­pings like jam have reached the 5 per cent tar­get. In the UK, there is a spe­cial sug­ar tax on soft drinks, and it has had an effect. The sug­ar lev­els in sweet­ened bev­er­ages have been reduced by a total of 28.3 per cent per 100 ml. The cus­tomers haven’t react­ed neg­a­tive­ly to less sug­ary drinks, at least it appears so since the pur­chase of soft drinks has remained intact.

More sugar in sweets

At the same time, PHE has not­ed that both sweets and pud­dings have become sweet­er. Thus, more sug­ar is added to these products.

The cam­paign group Action on Sugar believes that more needs to be done by the food indus­try. This is espe­cial­ly true of sug­ar reduc­tion of cook­ies, choco­late - and the sweet­er puddings.

Next year we have the answer

Will the UK gov­ern­ment, with the sup­port of author­i­ties and orga­ni­za­tions, suc­ceed in its goal? Will the food indus­try find sim­ple sug­ar-reduc­ing solu­tions for its products?

At the end of 2020, we will know the answer.

But one thing is sure: In the mean­time, I will let me be inspired by the two British tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ties Jamie Oliver and Michael Mosley, who do their share for a bet­ter lifestyle. I will be in good com­pa­ny; we are mil­lions of view­ers enjoy­ing the gentlemen’s shows.