The hated sugar tax worked for girls…but NOT for boys, Cambridge University scientists say

The tax on sugary drinks prevented more than 5,000 cases of obesity among girls in their last year of primary school each year, according to a study.

But with boys of the same age, it didn’t seem to make a difference.

In April 2018, to protect children from excessive sugar consumption and to combat childhood obesity, the British governments introduced a two-level sugar tax on soft drinks.

The tax was aimed at manufacturers to encourage them to reduce sugar content and to encourage young people to move away from the “bath of sugary drinks” they consume each year.

Now experts have found that the move was followed by a drop in obesity rates among girls as young as 10 and 11, but not among their male counterparts.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge tracked changes in childhood obesity in England between 2014 and 2020 in childcare and the sixth year.

Taking past trends into account, they compared the development of obesity 19 months after the sugar tax came into effect.

The team found that the introduction of the tax was associated with an eight percent relative reduction in obesity among sixth grade girls, equivalent to the incidence of 5,234 obesity cases per year in that group alone.

The declines were greatest among girls educated in disadvantaged areas, where children are known to consume the highest amounts of sugary drinks.

Those living in the most deprived areas saw a nine percent reduction.

However, the team found no link between the introduction of the sugar tax and changes in obesity among children in the receiving class.

And even in the sixth year of the boys’ life, the incidence of obesity in general did not change.

In the journal Plos Medicine, the team writes that it is unclear why the sugar tax affects the incidence of obesity differently in girls and boys.

However, one possible explanation is the potential impact of advertising, as numerous studies have found that boys are often more exposed to food advertisements than girls.

Physical activity is often used to encourage junk food, and it has been shown that boys are more likely than girls to believe that high-calorie junk food can improve physical performance.

There are also several reasons why sugar exposure did not lead to changes in obesity in younger children, the researchers said.

Very young children consume less sugar-sweetened beverages than older children, so soda intake would have had a smaller effect.

Fruit juices are also not included in the fee, but contribute a similar amount of sugar to the diet of young children as sugar-sweetened drinks.

Since the tax was introduced, manufacturers have had to pay 18p per liter if a drink contains between 5g and 8g of sugar, while the tax is 24p if a drink contains more than 8g of sugar per 100ml.

As a result, the recipes of some drinks, including Fanta, Lucozade, Sprite, Dr. Pepper and Vimto adjusted to contain less than 5g of sugar and no need for a price increase.

However, others such as Coca Cola and Pepsi refused to reduce the amount of sugar and the price went up as a result.

Dr. Nina Rogers, the study’s first author, said: “We urgently need to find ways to address the increasing number of obese children, otherwise we risk our children growing up with significant health problems.

This was one of the reasons why the UK Liquor Industry Levy was introduced and the evidence so far is encouraging.

“We showed for the first time that it probably helped save thousands of children from obesity each year.”

DR Simon Steenson, food scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said the study offers important insights.

“However, the underlying causes of obesity are complex, so it is difficult to directly attribute a change in obesity to a single factor,” he added.

“For example, the announcement and implementation of the sugar tax was accompanied by a program to voluntarily reduce sugar in other products commonly consumed by children, including cookies, cereal, yogurt and sweets.

“The authors emphasized that there are limitations in the interpretation of their study, which only shows an association and not a causal relationship.”