Sugar tax crucial to defeating obesity
SUGAR – not calories – are to blame for the obesity and diabetes epidemic in Australia, which is why there is a responsib sibility to introduce a sugar tax, say says endocrinologist and childho hood obesity expert Professor Ro Robert Lustig.
The US anti-sugar advocate ha has set his sights on Australia’s bu burgeoning waist lines and will arg argue the case for a tax on sug sugar at the 5th BioCeutical Re Research Symposium in Sydne ney this weekend.
Prof Lustig says sugar is “to “toxic” and addictive, like alcoh cohol and cocaine, and is ha harming the future health of ou our children.
“Fixing the obesity epidem demic isn’t as simple as ‘calories in, calories out’. It depends on where those calories come from and it depends on how those calories are metabolised,” Prof Lustig said.
“When you remove added sugar from the diet, even when calories remain the same, virtually all aspects of metabolic health are improved, regardless of weight change.” Because of the way sugar is metabolised the liver has no choice but to turn excess sugar into liver fat, says Prof Lustig.
It is now known that this liver fat is the driver of all the chronic metabolic diseases, includi cluding type 2 diabetes and hear heart disease.
T Two thirds of Australian adu adults and one in four children age aged 5-17 are classified overwei weight or obese.
Around 1.7 million Australia lians have diabetes, and acco cording to Diabetes Australia an estimated 500,000 people ar are living with type 2 diabetes w without knowing it.
Prof Lustig says blaming o obesity and diabetes on the individual is shortsighted, and society must intervene to tackle this health “crisis”, much like the battle against tobacco.
“We require both personal intervention and societal intervention, rehab and laws,” he said. “For alcohol we have needed both, for tobacco we needed both and for obesity and diabetes we will also need both.
“One of the problems that we have is that people consider obesity to be a moral failing, a personal responsibility issue and therefore why would you get society involved. That is not true.”