Sugar tax will ‘push the poor further into poverty’
THE new sugar tax is unlikely to persuade poor, overweight people to eat less, but is likely to make them poorer, according to Scottish researchers.
It argues that the way to tackle the UK’s weight problem is to tackle the causes of inequality.
In last week’s Budget, Chancellor George Osborne announced a tax on the makers of sugary soft drinks.
AG Barr, maker of Irn-Bru, said it had already cut sugar levels so the measure was “extremely disappointing”.
Now an academic study claims to provide the first experimental evidence of the connection between poverty and obesity, showing that people who see themselves as being poor are more likely to consume more. Its director says food campaigners such as Jamie Oliver should understand that connection in case they do more harm than good.
The study led by St Andrews University has discovered the psychological links between poverty, inequalit y and food consumption.
The research was undert aken by Dr Boyka Bratanova, a lecturer in management at St Andrews University.
Dr Bratanova said: “The introduction of consumption tax, like the recently introduced sugar tax, is essentially a flat-rate tax, and it hits the poorest the hardest.
“People who feel poor would probably continue to eat high calorie food at a similar rate as this food provides them with a higher caloric yield. So getting them to pay a higher price is unlikely to drastically change their consumption behaviour, but it is likely to push them further into poverty.”
Dr Bratanova worked with a team of international researchers, from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Melbourne.
She said: “Feeling poor and feeling unequal can simultaneously influence eating behaviour, pushing people to approach highcalorie food and consume larger amounts of it.”
Her team tested the hypotheses that perceived poverty triggers increased food consumption, by conducting studies of two groups. One saw themselves as poor, and were manipulated to do so, and the other that they were wealthy.
The “poor” participants ate on average 54 per cent more food than those induced to feel wealthy.