Rory Robertson Calls for Bans on Sugary Softdrinks, Fruit Juices, Flavoured Milks and Other Sugary Drinks in All Schools in Australia and Globally (Who? What? Why?) 1
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Happy National Diabetes Week (Australia), 14–20 July 2013 MEDIA RELEASE 18 July 2013 Rory Robertson calls for bans on sugary softdrinks, fruit juices, flavoured milks and other sugary drinks in all schools in Australia and globally (Who? What? Why?) 1. The proposed bans x Rory Robertson (RR) - an "economist and former fattie" (see 4. Background, below) – today called on the principals of all schools in Australia and the heads of all schools globally to remove all (remaining) sugary softdrinks, fruit juices, flavoured milks and other sugary drinks from their canteens/tuckshops and vending machines. Sugary drinks matter because they are the largest source of unhealthy sugar in our modern diets. The proposed ban is designed to reduce sugar consumption, probably the single-biggest driver of the disturbing global trends towards obesity and type 2 diabetes, together the greatest public health-challenge of our times (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963518/ and Resources, below). x A wise dietitian of note once wrote: “Sugar may taste nice but there is no nutritional reason why anyone should eat it”. Or drink it! Importantly, RR views the proposed ban on sugary drinks in schools as having great potential to provide a major fillip to Indigenous health in Australia and elsewhere, given that outsized rates of sugar consumption – alongside alcohol and tobacco – are a major driver of the unacceptable “gap” in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians: (bottom row of Box 2/Table 2 and “Comments”) https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2013/198/7/characteristics- community-level-diet-aboriginal-people-remote-northern-australia ; http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/A46F7399BED6C9DFCA25759200166452/$File/4724055001_2004 -05.pdf x RR on this topic is haunted by heartbreaking visions of children of all colours and sizes in many less-well-off areas of Australia and elsewhere, visions of kids sucking down sugary drinks from large bottles, cans and cartons as if they were water, setting themselves up for shorter lives featuring obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and related maladies. He notes that in February 2013 the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) - Australia's chief health advisor – declared in its revamped Australian Dietary Guidelines that "Milk and water are the [only] recommended drinks for children" (p. 79 https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/the_guidelines/n55_australian_dietary_guidelines_130530.pdf ). x With sugary drinks central to global trends to obesity and diabetes, RR is disturbed that “nothing much seems to have happened” in the six months since February: “Now that we have our kids strapped into cars with seatbelts, and have done what we can to remove cigarettes from their hot little hands, the next step towards improved public health is removing 'sweet poison' from their easy reach”. Within a decade or two, RR forecasts, dietary sugar will be near the top of the list of public-health pariahs, alongside tobacco, alcohol and drunk-driving. x To be clear, RR is talking about “All drinks with added, infused or concentrated sucrose (table sugar) and/or fructose (fruit sugar)”. His assessment is that "the single-most helpful thing" parents in Australia and elsewhere can do to stop or reverse trends to obesity and type 2 diabetes is to ensure their kids drink only water or plain milk, while minimising – or reducing entirely - the consumption of all sweet-tasting foods, not including up to two pieces of whole fruit per day. RR observes that removing sugary products “promotes appetite control”, opening the door to a healthier focus on wholefoods (including meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, wholegrain products and fruit). x RR notes that the new Australian Dietary Guidelines feature a toughening of official dietary advice against added sugar, encouraging Australians for the first time to "limit" our consumption of added sugar, in the same way we long have been encouraged to "limit" our consumption of alcohol: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3693188.htm x Importantly, this new, tougher official advice against added sugar was in response to new, stronger evidence for "The association between the consumption of sugar sweetened drinks and the risk of excessive weight gain in both children and adults". Moreover, added sugar is the only foodstuff for which the NHMRC highlights stronger evidence of a need for reduced consumption: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/canberradietary.pdf x In particular, the NHMRC is concerned about "excessive weight gain" - a.k.a. our societal trend towards obesity - because: “Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, some cancers, musculoskeletal conditions, respiratory conditions, sleep apnoea, gall bladder disease, hernia, reproductive disorders, urinary incontinence, fatty liver disease, and depression and other mental health disorders” (p. 13). That’s all! Yes, it’s worth making the effort as best you can to stop your kids getting fat, or trying hard to reverse overweight/obesity over time (see the obesity-reversing diet in Resources, below). x As most people born before 1980 are well aware, sugary drink consumption has increased significantly over our lifetimes. While hard data for Australia are rather thin on the ground, a series provided by the Australian Beverage Council to the University of Sydney for the decade to 2004 - then updated for 2005 and 2006 - indicates a 30% increase in per-capita sales of sugary softdrinks between 1994 and 2006, from about 35 litres per annum to 45 litres per annum (Slide 14 in next link). Awkwardly, the University of Sydney's highest-profile food scientists self-published a formal "peer reviewed" paper in 2011 claiming falsely that the series indicates a 10% decrease in per-capita sales of sugary softdrinks (Slide 20): http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/22Slideshowaustraliangoestoparadoxcanberrafinal.pdf x Compounding their errors, Australia's leading academic defenders of added sugar as harmless used their obviously false "finding" – sugary drink consumption trended lower as obesity increased - to "challenge the implicit assumption that taxes and other measures to reduce intake of soft drinks will be an effective strategy in global efforts to reduce obesity" (p. 502 of The Australian Paradox paper). x RR cautions that the unreliable Australian Dietitians Association, Australian Diabetes Council and Nutrition Australia cannot be trusted to properly assess the proposed ban on sugary drinks, promoting as they all do the University of Sydney’s reckless false “peer reviewed” claim that there is “an inverse relationship” between sugar consumption and obesity in Australia: www.australianparadox.com 2. Problems with Australia’s existing bans on sugary drinks in schools x In terms of limiting access to unhealthy sugary drinks, RR says that some schools in some countries have done a better job than others. “In Australia, a great deal of good work has been done in the past decade in terms of scaling back the availability of unhealthy drinks to kids; unfortunately, the various States’ initial bans on sugary drinks in our schools now seem to be rather weak and ineffective”. For example: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/schoolsweb/studentsupport/studentwellbeing/schoolcanteen/softdrink_ flyer.pdf x Looking forward to more-effective policy, RR’s assessment is that at least three factors drive us towards broader, tougher bans: (i) Evidence that sugary drinks are a menace to public health has become much stronger in the years since “bans” were first introduced in Australia in the 2000s (see previous link), and so the need for children to avoid sugary drinks has intensified (as discussed above and in Resources, below). (ii) Complicated rules are unhelpful in terms of promoting compliance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21463405 (iii) Food and beverage companies naturally respond to narrow rules by engineering new unhealthy choices that contain precisely the right amount of added sugar, salt and fat to slip under the regulatory bar while still maximising the addictive/moreish nature of the product, thus continuing to promote over-consumption by children and adults (see Salt Sugar Fat in Resources, below); x Accordingly, RR reckons: “The time is ripe for a new, simple and effective policy ban on sugary drinks – Plain water and plain milk are the only drinks available to children - in all Australian schools, providing a model for schools globally”. Indeed, RR argues that other food and drink providers with “captive” children – including hospitals and airlines (see a recent example of the latter in Resources, below) - should scale back access to unhealthy products, embracing his "Plain water and plain milk only" policy. Moreover, RR has a strong view that doctors and nurses globally should be instructed by their governments to advise their patients – especially in cases involving overweight/obesity and type 2 diabetes – to avoid the sweet stuff, in order to promote reduced weight, increased exercise and improved health. x Given (i), (ii) and (iii) above, RR says it is disturbing to discover the extent to which the engineering of unhealthy sugary foods is occurring under our noses. For example, at least one well-known producer engineering sweet beverages for kids and adults adds “cane sugar”, “fructose”, “corn syrup”, “banana puree”, honey (more fructose) and/or “stevia