Smaller bars ‘will help cut obesity’

REDUCING CHOCOLATE bar sizes and cutting the level of sugar in many popular products will lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of children who are overweight, health officials have said.

Childhood obesity is an “urgent problem”, Public Health England (PHE) said as it set out new guidelines to help the food industry reduce the amount of sugar children consume through everyday foods.

The guidelines suggest that sugar should be cut from nine popular products through reformulating products so they contain less sugar, reducing portion sizes or helping consumers shift to low, or no added sugar alternatives.

The Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan called for a 20 per cent reduction of sugar in the nine popular products consumed by children by 2020.

PHE said their new guidance will help industry achieve this.

This measure, along with the Government’s sugar levy on soft drinks, will lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of overweight children over the next decade, PHE said.

Officials claimed that if the sugar reduction targets are achieved, around 200,000 tonnes of sugar could be removed from UK diets each year from 2020.

The nine products at the focus of PHE’s sugar reduction project are the most popular sugary products consumed by children – yet they account for less than half children’s total sugar intake.

The new guidelines set out recommended sugar and calorie limits in the popular products – breakfast cereals, yoghurts, biscuits, cakes, puddings, ice creams and lollies, chocolate confectionary, sweets and morning goods including croissants and crumpets.

PHE chief executive Duncan Selbie: “The scale of our ambition to reduce sugar is unrivalled anywhere in the world, which means the UK food industry has a unique opportunity to innovate.”