WHO wants governments to increase tax on sugary drinks to check obesity

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is keen to fight global obesity and have said that Governments should tax sugary drinks to fight the global epidemics of obesity and diabetes. In its opinion, a 20 per cent price increase could reduce consumption of sweet drinks by the same proportion.
That is the message of WHO on World Obesity Day.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 12 October 2016.

WHO has indicated that drinking fewer calorific sweet drinks is the best way to curb excessive weight and prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes. In addiction, fat and salt in processed foods are also at fault.
As per statistics, obesity has more than doubled worldwide between 1980 and 2014 and 11 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women are classified as obese. That works out to more than 500 million people. An estimated 42 million children under the age 5 were overweight or obese in 2015 - that is an increase of about 11 million over 15 years.
An example of what increase in tax can do Mexico. It had a tax rise in 2014 of 10 percent and it resulted in a 6 percent drop in purchases by year-end. In the opinion of WHO, people need to roughly halve the amount of sugar they consume in order to reduce risks of obesity and tooth decay.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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