Daily sugar intake fell by around 5 g in children and by around 11 g in adults in the 12 months following the introduction of the UK’s ‘sugar tax’, formally known as the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, finds an analysis of 11 years of survey data, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
The sugar from soft drinks alone made up over half this total, the estimates suggest. But overall daily energy intake from free sugars levels are still higher than the updated recommendation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) of 5% (equivalent to 30 g/day for adults, 24 g for 7–10 year olds, and 19 g for 4–6 year olds) point out the researchers.
It wasn’t possible to study different age groups due to the limited number of participants, but falls in the levels of sugar in food and drink may have affected different age groups differently, say the researchers. The fall in consumption of free sugars observed in the whole diet rather than just from soft drinks suggests that consumption of free sugar from food was also falling from as early as 2008, they add. This might be because of the public health signalling following the announcement, they suggest.
View: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2024/06/11/jech-2023-221051
