DaSilva: Warning labels the way to go

ONE strategy being put forward to help reduce the consumption of sugary drinks is for warning labels to be placed on such products.

 

In an exclusive interview with The Barbados Advocate, Dr. P. Abdon DaSilva suggested that the warning, in clear and simple language, should indicate to persons where there is high sugar content in a product, and that if they consume more than the daily requirement of sugar, it could lead to bad health consequences.

 

His comments came as he lamented that most people are either not aware of, or they underestimate the risks of long-term health issues from excessive sugar consumption. But according to the American Heart Association, the maximum amount of added sugar one should eat in a day is 37.5 grams or nine teaspoons for men and 25 grams or six teaspoons for women.

 

“What I think might be useful in the public health interest, is if you put a label on drinks and even food products that’s visible and tells people look, this is three times or four times or five times the sugar in this drink that you should be having in a day. I believe that ought to impact on what people do,” he stated.

 

In fact, Dr. DaSilva, who is also President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP), thinks it is a strategy that can be employed across the board with respect to products containing more amounts of the salt, fat and the like, than the daily normal healthy quantities.

 

Questioned then as to what he thought of the Government-imposed 10 per cent tax on sugary drinks introduced last year to help curb the consumption of sweet drinks, he said that there is only one good example of a country imposing a successful soft drink tax – Mexico. But, he said, they did not introduce the tax as a standalone measure, rather their success was hinged on the fact that people were given alternatives. He added, however, that if the tax is sufficiently high in comparison to the lesser sweetened beverages, it may force people to change their tastes.

 

“We can also decrease the demand by limiting the marketing of sugar sweetened beverages to children, and increasing the price, but most of all, you should reduce the price of healthy alternatives. If we try to reduce the widespread availability of the drinks and try to improve access to more appropriate alternatives, we can reduce or restrict the serving size. We can try to reduce the use of sweetened beverages in the home, but this would depend a lot on parents, and we can limit it in community settings where there are fairs and those kinds of activities that have soft drinks readily available,” he said.

 

Reflecting then on reports in the media that players in the industry say Barbadians will not be denied the choice, he raised the question as to whether they really had the power to choose.

 

“It is one thing to say you are not going to deny people the choice, but do people really have a choice? My answer to it, is scientifically no. Once you have consumed sugar, there is evidence to show you set your taste for sugar at that level, and sugar has also been known to increase people’s appetites. Not only does it increase appetite, but it decreases your satiety; and there is also evidence to show it makes you want to consume other high calorie foods. It has also been shown that if you give a child a sweet drink and then you offer them one that is not sweetened they reject it,” he explained.

 

The BAMP President said it is expected that there would be push back from the industry regarding the calls for a reduction in the sugar content of soft drinks, but that fact should not deter the calls. He made the point as he noted that in asking local manufacturers to reformulate their products, one has to bear in mind that many products are international brands over which they have no control. Effectively then, he contended the target should be local products.

 

“Or perhaps make the tax on the drinks that have foreign control higher, make the tax so alarmingly high that people would be forced into using the local, more healthy drinks. How that would pan out in terms of trade agreements I don’t know, but it is something to consider,” he surmised. (JRT)