Is the Sugar Tax Working?

Almost three quarters of UK adults are overweight or obese with obesity rates doubling in the last 30 years. Sugar consumption has been blamed as a major culprit, and most teenagers are typically now consuming over 70 grams of refined sugar every day. The government introduced a sugar tax back in 2018 to penalise manufacturers based on how much sugar they were putting into their beverages. Wojine Adams from the Cambridge MRC Epidemiology Unit has been looking at the impact on school aged children. She found an 8% relative reduction in obesity levels in year six girls. Boys though, showed no change.