No sugar-coating SA’s health facts

SOUTH AFRICANS drink almost three times more sugary drinks than the global average, parliament has heard, as MPs debate the imposition of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

Professor Tolu Oni, of UCT’s school of public health, told the joint meeting of parliament’s health and finance committees statistics showed the global average of Coca-Cola products consumed a person a year was 89.

In South Africa in 2010, this number was 254. It had risen considerably since 1997, when it was 175.

She said South Africans had the second highest consumption of sugarsweetened beverages in children nine to 10 years old in the world, second only to the United States.

Dr Sundeep Ruder, representing the Society for Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, said South Africa was the most obese nation in sub-Saharan Africa. He said 70% of South African women and 40% of men were either obese or overweight.

He said one sugar-sweetened beverage a day increased the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 26%.

The Department of Health’s Dr Malcolm Freeman said South Africans’ poor diets were a burden on the state, struggling under the cost of high and rising rates of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

While almost all presenters admitted that the tax would not solve the problems by itself, parliament heard that a tax was the most cost-effective way to start addressing the problem.

Fiscal measures like a sugar tax cost only 20c a head, while other interventions cost far more.

BevSA, which represents drinks manufacturers like Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Tiger Brands, however, said that the tax would cause serious problems for the industry.

BevSA’s Mapule Ncanywa told the committees that together, their industry created 300 000 jobs and contributed billions in annual taxes.

She said the tax could contribute to a 25% loss in jobs.

But Dr Frank Chaloupka, of the University of Illinois, said in Mexico, where a similar tax had been introduced, there had been no impact on jobs.

The Treasury has said Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will release more details of the planned tax in his budget speech next month. – TMG