Sugar Tax Reporting Comes Under Scrutiny
16 July 2024
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4 November 2024
Christopher Snowdon writes for CapX
IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon has written for CapX criticising recent reporting of a study on the impact of the sugar tax.
Christopher wrote:
“The Guardian is trying to find out how gullible its readers are. How else can you explain a headline like ‘Children’s daily sugar consumption halved just a year after tax, study finds’? It can only be deliberate. The alternative explanation is that Guardian journalists cannot read a simple study and are highly credulous, but since that is unthinkable we must assume that such headlines are designed to be idiot tests.
“Did children’s sugar consumption halve after an 8p tax was put on a can of Coke? Of course not. And that is not what the study claimed. The study claimed that children’s sugar consumption from soft drinks halved between 2008 and 2019, with nearly all the decline occurring before the sugar tax was introduced in April 2018.
“The real story here is that sugar consumption has been falling for years and rates of obesity have not. I was a voice in wilderness when I pointed this out ten years ago, but it is the truth. The decline in sugar consumption did not begin in 2008 but has been going on for decades. Per capita consumption of sugar peaked in the 1970s when obesity rates were very low.”
Read Christopher’s full piece here.
Christopher wrote:
“The Guardian is trying to find out how gullible its readers are. How else can you explain a headline like ‘Children’s daily sugar consumption halved just a year after tax, study finds’? It can only be deliberate. The alternative explanation is that Guardian journalists cannot read a simple study and are highly credulous, but since that is unthinkable we must assume that such headlines are designed to be idiot tests.
“Did children’s sugar consumption halve after an 8p tax was put on a can of Coke? Of course not. And that is not what the study claimed. The study claimed that children’s sugar consumption from soft drinks halved between 2008 and 2019, with nearly all the decline occurring before the sugar tax was introduced in April 2018.
“The real story here is that sugar consumption has been falling for years and rates of obesity have not. I was a voice in wilderness when I pointed this out ten years ago, but it is the truth. The decline in sugar consumption did not begin in 2008 but has been going on for decades. Per capita consumption of sugar peaked in the 1970s when obesity rates were very low.”
Read Christopher’s full piece here.
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