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Download AudioFIZZ, the Fighting Sugar in Soft Drinks group, says it is overdue to resurrect its battle for a sugary drinks tax to help combat the country’s diabetes epidemic.
FIZZ founder Dr Gerhard Sundborn is also a senior lecturer of Population and Pacific Health at the University of Auckland.
He says while there is a disproportionate impact of diabetes on Māori and Pasifika communities, research shows that as many as six in ten Pākehā New Zealanders now have diabetes, making it a major and growing issue for tamariki.
“In your typical can of fizzy drink, there’s about eleven teaspoons of sugar. So if a child has a full-sugar can of fizzy drink, they’re having about four days of sugar in one hit. But the nutrition labels are confusing, and what we’d like to see is a front-of-pack label – that identifies how many teaspoons of sugar are in that,” says Sundborn.
Gerhard Sundborn says while 80% of supermarket products—especially processed ones—contain sugar, fizzy drinks are by far the worst offenders.
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