File picture: Uew Hermann/Flickr File picture: Uew Hermann/Flickr
Pretoria - The tirade against sugar and processed food reached unprecedented heights in the past year, yet arguments being advanced towards that end are unfounded, food scientist Dr Nigel Sunley said.
According to Sunley, the world had a huge obesity problem and it was particularly severe in South Africa.
“Even the most fanatical member of the public health community acknowledges that the obesity problem is multi-factorial in nature,” he said.
Issues such as lifestyle and the lack of exercise played major roles, as did the basic issue of food intake.
“But what are the comparative contributions of nutrition and non-nutrition related factors to the obesity problem and the nutrition factor?”
Sunley asked if they had been identified and options to address them discussed.
He said obesity was the result of a few factors, among them food consumed, energy intake and the energy sources like carbohydrates, sugars and fats.
He said the options to address them would include portion control, reformulation, consumer education and controlling the availability of food in designated environments.
“But the most used approaches are regulation, regulation and more regulation. And if that doesn’t work... even more regulation,” Sunley said.
He told a gathering of dietitians and nutritionists in Pretoria that academic public health nutritionists, government and the World Health Organisation were to blame.
“They have little or no knowledge or understanding of consumer behaviour,” he said. He spoke at a Nutrition Symposium hosted by the South African Sugar Association, where he said those organisations were under pressure to reduce obesity and therefore looked for a silver bullet.
He said no consideration was taken for issues of consumer behaviour. Among the key behavioural issues relating to food choice, Sunley counted palatability and cost. “Nutritional value and health benefits are a far lesser concern, particularly to low income and poorly educated people.”
He spoke as the government and the National Treasury prepared to debate the anticipated tax on sugar-sweetened drinks.
A 10-percent tax on the drinks could be introduced in April next year, with the aim of reducing obesity and the burden on non-communicable diseases.
But no scientific evidence supporting that existed, said Sunley.
He also asked if it made any clinical sense to target sugar. That would mean that the proceeds of the tax be put into programmes to benefit the public. “But not this cash-strapped department; they have said it would go into other pools of money,” he said.
Because the government had to be seen to be doing something, soft drink tax had been the quick and politically desirable cop-out, said Sunley.
“Obesity is a complex, systemic, multi-causal problem and it needs to be addressed as such.”
Experts had to come together to address the issue and find the solutions which would benefit society, he added.
ntando.makhubu@inl.co.za
@ntsandvose
PRETORIA NEWS