Daily sugar intake fell by around 5g in children and 11g in adults in the 12 months following the introduction of the UK’s ‘sugar tax’ in 2018, according to the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

The estimate suggests that soft drink sugar made up over half of this total. However, overall daily energy intake from free sugar levels is still higher than the recommendation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) of five percent.

The study

Researchers looked particularly at changes in total intake of dietary free sugars from all food and soft drinks combined and from soft drinks alone.

The data draws on information from 7999 adults and 7656 children, and estimated changes in free sugar consumption are based on January to March 2019. They are compared with what would be expected had no sugar tax been implemented.

The results

After the sugar tax was announced in 2016, free sugars consumed from all soft drinks more or less halved in children and fell by a third in adults.

The survey indicated that one year after the UK sugar tax came into force children further reduced their free sugar intake by around 5g per day (a relative reduction of 10 per cent) and adults by approximately 11g per day (a relative reduction of 20 per cent).

Over half of this total was from soft drinks alone, accounting for around 3g per day (a relative reduction of 23.5 per cent) in children and around 5g per day (a relative reduction of just under 40.5 per cent) in adults. Protein intake remained stable throughout in children and adults.

The researchers pointed out, “In children, a daily reduction of 4.8g sugar equates to approximately 19.2 kilocalories out of an approximate daily intake of 2000 kilocalories which is equivalent to approximately one per cent reduction in energy intake.”

Energy intake from free sugars as a proportion of total energy consumed didn’t change significantly following the introduction of the levy. Researchers say this indicates that energy intake from free sugar was reducing at the same time as overall total energy intake and suggest that people didn’t substantially change.

Due to the limited number of participants, it wasn’t possible to study different age groups. However, the researchers said fall in the sugar levels in food and drink may have affected different age groups differently.

For example, the largest single contributor to free sugars in four to 10-year-olds is cereal and cereal products, followed by soft drinks and fruit juice. By the age of 11–18, soft drinks provide the largest single source (29 per cent). For adults, the largest source of free sugars is sugar, preserves, and confectionery, followed by non-alcoholic drinks, they explained.

The fall in consumption of free sugars observed in the whole diet rather than just from soft drinks suggested that consumption of free sugar from food was also falling from as early as 2008, researchers added. This might be because of the public health signalling following the announcement, researchers suggested.

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