Government must tackle sugar consumption
On World Health Day, there was a frightening fact that came to the fore. It’s that one in every four Indians has diabetes, an overwhelming majority of cases being of Type-II diabetes, the onset of which is due to lifestyles. As human beings lead increasingly sedentary lifestyles with poor food intake among a large section of society, lifestyle-related conditions like diabetes will only increase. And we must take urgent measures to control it, because the uncontrolled rise of diabetes in india and globally will lead to massive problems for future generations. There is little doubt that refined sugar is the most dangerous white powder known to mankind. While some can reasonably argue that cocaine and heroin are far more dangerous for human health, these are not available anywhere and everywhere and are definitely not an integral part of daily diet and given to young children. The fact is that drinks with a high added sugar content, fizzy soft drinks or even mango drinks with added sugar, are available at ridiculously low prices at street corners across the country and in some cases even inside schools. Sweets are an integral part of the Indian diet, and several parts of the country (Bengal, for example) are famous for their sweets. But with lifestyles dramatically changing, people are not working out the high amounts of energy received from foods with sugar. In addition, sugar used in sweets earlier, took time to process and was not cheap. Today, refined sugar is cheaper than ever before and is being added to more and more processed foods. It’s responsible for the explosion of diabetes.
The world has fought a long war against saturated fats, and we have changed the way we consume oils and butter. It is time that Governments across the world, including in India, declare war against sugary foods. This can start by imposing a tax on the worst culprits fizzy carbonated drinks. While some in this industry claim that such a move would lead to job losses, this Government, which has shown its strong will by acting against the tobacco industry's blackmail, should stand firm against the distributors of diabetes. We are a young country, but we should ensure that we are a young and healthy country. And for that, there should not be just a war on alcohol, tobacco and drugs but also excessive sugar consumption. Countries such as Mexico have shown the way forward when it comes to a soda tax.
Sugarcane cultivation requires large quantities of water. With the country facing a water crisis, when humans have virtually no water to drink, the water demands of the sugarcane sector adds to the problem. And we have heard enough cases of plants of multinational soft drink producers polluting water sources. Couple these two problems with the diabetes explosion, and it becomes imperative that we tax sugary foods and drinks and treat sugary carbonated drinks the same way we treat tobacco.