Action on Sugar

From the website of Action on Sugar (2021) - AIMS

Our mission is to achieve a reduction in free sugars intake in the UK and ensure it contributes to less than 5% of total energy intake.

By working to reach a consensus with food manufacturers and Government that there is strong evidence that free sugars are a major cause of obesity and have other adverse health effects, we aim to create sustainable policies and systems that enable reduced free sugars intake.

Aims

• To ensure that children are highlighted as a particularly vulnerable group whose health is more at risk from high free sugars intakes

• To persuade food processors and suppliers to universally and gradually reduce the free sugars content of processed foods

• To conduct a Parliamentary campaign to ensure the Government and Department of Health take action, and that, if the food industry does not comply with the sugar targets, they will enact legislation or impose a sugars tax

• To ensure the body of scientific evidence about the dangers of excessive refined free sugars consumption becomes translated into policy by the Government and relevant professional organisations

• To work with other organisations and stakeholders in order to maximise the message about what is a healthy diet, ensuring this includes reducing the current national high free sugars intake

• To work with experts around the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and individual ministries of health and other relevant bodies

• To ensure clear and comprehensive nutritional labelling of free sugars content of all processed foods and beverages, using the recommended traffic light system

• To educate the public in becoming more sugar aware in terms of understanding the impact of added sugar on their health, checking labels when shopping and avoiding products with high levels of free sugars.

From the website of Action on Sugar (2021) - ABOUT US

Action on Sugar was launched in 2014, by Consensus Action on Salt and Health – now Action on Salt, to inform and influence sugar reduction policies in the UK, which can also be replicated worldwide, to support the population in consuming no more than the recommended five percent of total energy from free sugars.

Action on Sugar comprises leading expert advisors who have been striving to commit the government to releasing an evidenced-based childhood obesity strategy and to ensure that it is then implemented effectively.

Action on Sugar has successfully created a huge amount of awareness of the impact of excess sugar consumption on our wellbeing. Already, manufacturers and retailers have reformulated their products following our widely publicised surveys exposing the high and low sugar products through national, and international, media. Action on Sugar works closely with the food and drink industry to inform their nutrition strategy and provide technical expertise around sugar reduction. We publish research in influential journals demonstrating our findings and modelling the impact of sugar reduction strategies, which is used to influence the decision of policy makers with persuasive evidenced-based arguments.

Action on Sugar is a registered charity and is funded by charitable donations. We do not accept any funding from the food or soft drinks industry.