The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found. The tax

Children’s daily sugar consumption halved just a year after tax, study finds

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2024-07-10 08:00:07

The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found.

The tax, which came into force in April 2018, has been so successful in improving people’s diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar food and drink products is now a “no-brainer”.

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at responses from 7,999 adults and 7,656 children between 2008 and 2019 to the annual nationally representative UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey.

It showed that the daily sugar intake for children fell by about 4.8g, and for adults 10.9g, in the year after the levy’s introduction.

The total dietary free sugars, including food and drink, in children was about 70g a day at the beginning of the study, but this fell to about 45g by the end.

For adults, the study found that the total dietary free sugar consumption stood at about 60g a day, and fell to about 45g a day by the end of the study.

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