Don’t give sugary drinks to children warns NHS chief

PARENTS must stop ‘ poisoning’ their children with the sugar-laden drinks and snacks that are fuelling the obesity crisis, an NHS chief has warned.

Youngsters should have water or milk rather than fizzy drinks and juice if they want a thirst- quencher after school, said Simon Stevens.

And they should have sliced apples to nibble on instead of high-calorie confectionery, he said.

The chief executive of NHS England said the rising burden of obesity is ‘the new smoking’ and said families have a responsibility not to put their offspring at risk of diseases linked to weight gain like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

In a stark warning, Mr Stevens – a father of two school-age children – said prevention began at home and at school. ‘We’ve got to play our part as parents, we’ve got responsibilities’, he said. ‘When your children come home from schools it’s water and milk, not fizzy drinks and juice. It’s cut up apples not sugary bars.’

He fell short of backing calls by some politicians for taxes on sug- ary foods marketed at children, but said the food industry ‘has a huge responsibility’ to provide healthier alternatives.

‘We are seeing that perhaps one in three of our teenagers are drinking high- energy, sugary drinks,’ he added. ‘We’ve got the highest use of fizzy energy drinks or any country in Europe.

‘I do think we’re going to need reformulation to take sugar out of foods, in the same way that’s successfully happened with salt. Responsible retailers, food producers can smell the coffee here.

‘They can see public attitudes are changing. If that doesn’t happen then in effect what we’re doing is a slow-burner food poisoning through all of this sugar that goes on to cause cancer, diabetes and heart disease. That’s what we’re doing to our kids, we’ve got to stop it.’ Mr Stevens said action to cut smoking, teenage pregnancy and drinkdriving had already proved highly successful.

‘But obesity is the new smoking,’ he said. ‘One in five cancer deaths is now caused by obesity.’ Research- ers warned last week that obesity is already responsible for 32,000 cancer deaths in the UK every year, and will soon eclipse smoking as the biggest cancer killer.

Experts now say fizzy drinks and fruit juice as well as other sugary snacks should be rationed to once a week to prevent children becoming overweight.

The UN says children should have no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day, and warn that just one can of fizzy drink can exceed this threshold. Many parents give their children fruit juices assuming they are healthy, without realising they are often rich in natural sugar.

Britain has among the worst levels of obesity in Europe despite government health initiatives to deal with the problem.

One in three children is classed as overweight – and one in 10 are obese by the time they start primary school at the age of four.

Mr Stevens has said Britain needs to ‘pull out all the stops’ to stem the rise of diseases linked to bad lifestyles and has warned that obesity is becoming ‘normal’ as millions of parents are unaware that their offspring are seriously overweight. Last year he urged the NHS’s 1.3million staff to slim down as an example to their patients.

Labour health spokesman Andy Burnham is among those who have called for mandatory labelling and caps on the amount of fat, sugar and salt in food aimed at children. However, the move has faced opposition from industry. The National Obesity Forum has urged all primary schools to hold regular PE lessons.

‘Give them milk, not fizzy drinks’ ‘Slow-burn food poisoning’