Nutrition body rejects fat tax

By Graham Holter

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Fat tax Nutrition

Nutrition body rejects fat tax
The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) has joined the opposition to calls for a fat tax to curb the UK’s growing obesity crisis.

Last week the Lancet​ said it was time for government intervention, claiming the food industry’s voluntary schemes to deal with the nation’s excessive fat intake are not working.

The editorial has met with a big backlash from the food industry, which fears a fat tax similar to those in Hungary and Denmark.

BNF director general Professor Judith Buttriss said: “We agree that the obesity epidemic will not be reversed without government leadership, and this has begun through initiatives such as Change4Life and partnership working via the Responsibility Deal​.”

But she added: “There is currently little evidence to support taxation approaches.

Tackling obesity

“A combination of interventions involving both energy in and energy out is likely to be most successful in tackling obesity. We hope that an integrated approach will be taken in the government’s obesity framework.

“Voluntary schemes, such as reformulation activities and labelling schemes, have the potential to play a useful part but consumers have to play their part too.”

Brian Stein, chief executive of Ginsters producer Samworth Brothers, said producers were working to reduce saturated fats and salt in their products, but this had an impact on flavour as well as costs.

He told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “It’s very difficult. There is a lot of work going on, but you are caught in this situation where people are very demanding about this, but they don’t want to pay any more.

“We are working very hard in that area and hopefully in the very near future we will start making some statements.”

He added: “We’ve made significant reductions in salt. But my nervousness at the moment is that in one or two areas we might have gone too far.

The balance right

“It’s all very well saying corporately this is what the country wants, then people stop buying your food because there is no taste to it. You’ve got to be careful and get the balance right.”

In May a tax on salt, alcohol, sugar and saturated fats was proposed by Sir Nicholas Wald, director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine in London.

Hungary plans to introduce a fat tax next month which will target high fat, sugar or salt content. The tax is expected to raise €70m a year.

Earlier this year, Denmark introduced a saturated fat tax which lead to significant increases in the prices of butter, margarine and whipped cream.

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1 comment

No justification for reducing fat

Posted by Verner Wheelock,

It is now over 25 years since the recommendation to reduce fat/saturated fat became official policy. Food retailers and manufacturers responded very positively. New products were developed and heavily promoted so that the ''low fat'' message was widely accepted.

As a result, total fat intake has fallen from almost 350 grams per week to less than 200 grams per week at the present time. The original target to reduce saturated fat by 25% has actually been achieved. Over the period, the incidence of obesity has shot up. Diabetes has more than doubled. Heart disease has remained at the same level while there has been an increase in kidney disease.

Clearly something is badly wrong because the predicted improvements in public health have not materialised.

A review of the available scientific evidence demonstrates that the rationale underpinning the recommendations to reduce fat are fundamentally flawed.

For a start, major trials in the US designed to prove that the measures worked have been a total failure. A study in Finland showed that those who were advised to improve their diet and take exercise had a higher death rate than those left to their own devices.

In Japan,between 1958 and 1995, the fat intake increased by a factor of four because of a growth in consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products. There was no change in the incidence of heart disease but strokes fell by 85%.

There is ample research which confirms that carbohydrates, especially the refined ones such as sugar are key factors in the development of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Data from National Statistics show that as the fat content has fallen there has been a corresponding increase in the carbohydrate. There is a straight line relationship between the increase in consumption of carbohydrates and the increase in obesity which started in the 1980s.

There is absolutely no justification for reducing fat – it is now evident that this does more harm than good. Rather than considering a tax on fat, it is time to encourage people to eat more fat of all types except the nasty trans fats. This has got to be good news for the milk and dairy producers!

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