Sugar tax will help save our kids from obesity

A councillor has called on TDs returning to the Dail in coming weeks to seriously consider introducing a sugar tax.

Cllr Fiona McLoughlin Healy of Fine Gael said the measure is necessary to curb the childhood obesity epidemic facing the country.

The politician wants to target sugar-sweetened soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit drink, sports drinks and fruit-juice concentrates.

Cllr McLoughlin Healy said: "Obesity has become an epidemic in Ireland and sugary drinks are a significant contributor to obesity.

"By the age of 3, one in four of our children in Ireland is already overweight or obese, affecting their quality of life and their families' quality of life for the rest of their lives." Expert Prof Donal O Shea has said in the past that a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks has the strongest evidence of effectiveness of taxation approaches to address overweight and obesity.

These include sugar-sweetened soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit drink, sports drinks and fruit-juice concentrates.

Cllr McLoughlin Healy added: "The money we spend treating obesity and the multiple obesity related diseases could better be spent elsewhere."

"The cost of obesity to the State and to the tax-payer has been estimated at €1.64 billion a year....a year!

If we fail to tackle the obesity epidemic it will continue to drain fiscal finances, money that could better be spent on front-line jobs in our hospitals and community policing or on public infrastructure like roads, transport, broadband. In many countries with universal health insurance , sugar taxes contribute to the cost of universal healthcare."

The politician said that if society is serious about improving our children's quality of life, cutting the cost of obesity to the tax-payer and about universally available healthcare, we need to introduce evidence based initiatives that work.

"We should of course expect intense lobbying by groups representing corporations with billions to spend getting messaging into the public domain that is more about protecting profit margins than it is about jobs.

"My children's future and that of our nation's children matters more."