Why Jamie Oliver wants to impose a sugar tax
By Indya Duivenbode
It is commonly known that consuming extensive amounts of sugar is unhealthy. People become more and more aware of this and try to spread their knowledge, under which one finds British cook and television-star Jamie Oliver, who has been active promoting healthy nutrition for many years. He started this promotion a long time ago with his own cookbooks, but his promotion developed way more now. From ted-talks to documentaries, he progressed all the way up to the petitioning for the sugar tax..
Oliver proposes a sugar tax on sugary drinks specifically. For him this is a good place to start, as soft drinks are the largest single source of sugar consumption. Two drinks often exceed the recommended maximum daily sugar intake already. Studies show that raising taxes on products can reduce consumption significantly. The petition is getting a lot of attention as it attempts to involve the government in the matter. Even though it is only running for approximately two months yet, it already received over 150,000 signatures, which exceeds the required 100,000 signatures to reach a parliament’s debate.
Why impose a sugar tax? Consuming a large amount of sugar has severe consequences for our health and our health care system. It is especially severe because most people cannot resist it. Heart diseases and cancer are currently the number one and two causes of death. Diabetes also ranks within the top 10 death causes. The World Health Organization made a list of chronic diet-related diseases that include diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and several types of cancer. Not only is changing our sugar consumption beneficial for our health, but also for the health care system. The health care system has been under a lot of pressure recently. There are too many cuts in the health care budget and insurances are generally getting more expensive. Adjusting one’s diet can prevent a huge percentage of diet-related diseases, which will decrease the costs for the health care system. Since adjusting one’s diet can decrease general health costs, investing in changing eating behavior in our society can be beneficial.
It is easy to suggest that we should simply eat less sugar. Although it is true, it is way more complicated to implement in our daily lives. Jamie Oliver emphasizes a model wherein three concepts stand central, namely “home”, “school”, and “main street”.
Additional to Oliver’s theory, other experts argue that we are a generation living in a society that provides and promotes sugar everywhere around us, who eat premade meals as we are too occupied to cook, and who lack general knowledge about nutrition. This is relatable to the three concepts Oliver suggests.
At home children receive their most important meals and nutrition. Therefore, it is important that the food provided at home is healthy and that children develop good eating habits. Not only does one’s upbringing at home matter, but Jamie Oliver also considers school as crucial to change sugar consumption in our society. In school we are supposed to learn life skills, he says and asks why we then don’t learn about the food we eat? He believes it is important that children know what healthy nutrition is, and preferably how to produce healthy food themselves. For several years he has conducted a global campaign to improve food education. With the revenue of the newly introduced idea of sugar tax he hopes a further investment in food education in order to reduce the number of sickness in future generations caused by diet related diseases. However, knowledge itself is not enough. Even when one has the necessary knowledge about nutrition, it is difficult to follow a healthy eating habit. In everyone’s direct environment unhealthy food gets promoted on a daily basis. It is often cheaper and easier to prepare. Most confusing here is the food that is promoted as healthy or low in fat, while containing an excessive amount of sugar. Therefore, not only our individual attitude, but also the main street needs to change according to Jamie Oliver.
Of course eating less sugar will not prevent diet-related diseases completely, as there are also other factors that can cause or trigger the disease. Besides that, there are also other components next to sugar that influence the chances on getting diseases, such as too much fat and additives. However, eating less sugar would be a good start and will, according to Jamie Oliver, significantly decrease diet related diseases. It is important to remember that sugar is not entirely harmful for someone’s health, as we also need sugars. However, reducing our sugar intake by the tree factors: home, school and main street could result in a healthier society and a better health care system that each one of us could benefit from more.
Indya Duivenbode, Class of 2016, is an Economics and Politics Major from Huizen, the Netherlands.
