9tsp of sugar is the real thing

How exactly should the new sugar tax be formulated, asks Dara Gantly There is no way to sugar-coat the statistics: in Ireland in 2010, 21 per cent of one-year-olds, 53 per cent of four-year-olds and 75 per cent of five- to 18-year-olds were found to consume sugar-sweetened drinks, with children from lower socio-economic groups significantly more likely to report drinking soft drinks daily or more often. In the same year, in a cohort of European countries, Irish seven-year-old boys and girls were ranked as having the fifth and third highest BMIs respectively, with obesity putting our children at risk of…