I have no objection, in principle, to the government’s proposed sugar tax. It is a matter of fact that eating tons of sugar is bad for us and it would be a good idea for us to cut down a bit. And I totally get the fact that children are in the forefront of the argument. But I am wondering if this assault on the sugary drinks is the be all and end all of the government’s thinking.
My teeth are a very good example of why too much sugar isn’t a good thing and like many of my generation I consumed tons of the stuff through things like Ribena and – I am not joking here – sugar sandwiches. Together with the gallons of lemonade we consumed, we were probably not leading the ideal lifestyles. But not many of us were that fat either. My generation went to the park for enormous games of football, sometimes 20 aside, and we all walked or cycled to school. We were not angels and we often slummed it like the best of them, but we were not all desperately unhealthy.
We ate chocolates, biscuits and ice cream too, by the way, and avoided cabbage like the plague. I had never heard of things like broccoli. All of which proves nothing at all, except to say that eating and drinking crap is not exactly new.
The sugar tax argument seems to be a stand alone idea when it shouldn’t be. For instance, I often visit my local Co-op in the morning to collect my newspaper and the same kids get dropped off outside every morning to catch the bus to their parents’ choice of catholic school across town. Many of them live less than 800 yards from the bus stop, but their parents obviously feel this is far too much of a hardship for their young loves and drive them, whereupon they go into the shop to purchase – oh yes – sugary drinks and foods. I am not trying to be funny or horrible here, but many of these children are quite a size too and it is not just down to their daily consumption of Mountain Dew.
After a sedentary day, many of the same children spend hours on the PS4, too, which suggests perhaps that George Osborne might consider introducing a SOYA tax, SOYA meaning Sitting On Your Arse, to supplement the sugar tax?
I do not spend my days, you will be happy to learn, comparing the various sizes of local children – people have been locked up for less – but from informal observations, my sons and their friends are fit, healthy and manage a sensible balance of healthy foods, crap foods and exercise. I cannot tell them what to eat when they are not in the home but I can steer them roughly speaking in the right direction. I think they are taking it.
It’s mainly about education, this nutrition malarkey, and common sense. And it’s a bit about poverty too, the poorer you are, the more crap you eat and when I was young crap would have been a healthy improvement on what I did have. The education bit is quite important too given that it is far cheaper to buy and cook fresh foods than it is to buy high sugar, high salt, high fat foods from the frozen food specialists.
My feeling is that George Osborne’s sugar tax is more that he wants to be seen to be doing something rather than actually doing anything meaningful.
And when you get Jamie Oliver and his annoying mockney accent dancing in celebration to the chancellor’s decision, you do wonder if something is wrong. I try to watch as little as I can of people cooking things on telly, but when I do they spend much of their time cooking stuff with all the crap you can imagine. Given that cooking things is the new rock and roll, there’s a lot of people watching. You must have seen it, “Start with half a pound of sugar, put it in a pan with a hundredweight of salt and pepper and some full fat fresh cream, fry something very fatty and call for an Ambulance immediately to deal with the blocked arteries.”
Something in the field of public health is better than nothing but putting a sugar tax on a few sugary drinks is little more than nothing in the grand scheme of things.
