News

30 November 2015

Response to UK's First National Sugar Awareness Week

Attributable to Sharon Fisher, Communications Manager, AB Sugar

As part of Sugar Awareness Week, we would like to see efforts made to provide people with robust information on diet and lifestyle so they can make their own informed choices.  Focusing solely on one single ingredient when obesity is so complex is not going to resolve rising obesity rates.

We know from our own research that around four in five people are interested in learning more about what a balanced diet consists of*.  That is why we launched the Making Sense of Sugar campaign which provides people with the facts on what a balanced diet and lifestyle looks like and the role sugar can play.

Attributable to Katharine Teague, Head of Advocacy, AB Sugar 

As part of Sugar Awareness Week, we would like the discussion to focus on all of the potential solutions to improving obesity rates, rather than solely on one ingredient.  Obesity is an extremely complex issue - Government data shows that in the UK, total sugars consumption has declined by 12.5% per capita since 2001, whilst obesity rates continue to rise**. We therefore believe that we all need to work together to tackle increasing obesity rates. As a starting point, we would like to see the introduction of a cross-departmental taskforce to formulate workable solutions across the whole of government.   
 
A critical part of tackling the current obesity crisis is also to look at the scientific evidence to inform future policy approaches that will enable people to make more informed decisions including diet and lifestyle.  The science tells us that the starting point for diet is calories (energy) in and calories (out).

We are committed to playing our part to finding real and workable solutions to the obesity crisis. However, these must be based on robust scientific evidence rather than the inaccuracies and misinformation currently driving the debate.