Bitter And Twisted

Four Corners twists the facts about sugar, obesity and personal responsibility to fit its own anti-business agenda. By Fred Pawle.

The ABC’s endorsement of a proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is now well established. Economics correspondent Emma Alberici said in January that there were “mountains of evidence pointing to the public health benefits” of a sugar tax. The ABC refused the MRC an opportunity to rebut this claim, and Alberici has never substantiated it. This week Four Corners added its flagship weight to the campaign. Here’s how we saw it:

Presenter Sarah Ferguson: “Health advocates have been lobbying for years for a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Twenty-eight countries have adopted such a tax, the most recent being the United Kingdom. But here in Australia there is still no mainstream political support for the idea.”

This is because there is no evidence that such taxes work. The MRC’s study of six recent academic studies (five from Australia and one from Mexico) made two key conclusions: the studies did not demonstrate a causal link between added sugars and obesity, and a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages “would fail to reduce obesity”. A similar study of 47 research papers by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research published in January said: “No study based on actual experience with sugar taxes has identified an impact on health outcomes.” Just because other countries - including Cook Islands, Philippines, Estonia, Nauru and Saudi Arabia - have introduced this tax does not mean Australia should do likewise. Such obsequiousness to other nations was once called our “cultural cringe”.

Obesity Policy Coalition executive manager Jane Martin: “We know that 52 per cent of people exceed the guidelines for added sugar.  We know the largest proportion of added sugar in teenagers’ diet, 60 per cent, is coming from sugary drinks. That’s a huge problem. We need to do a lot more to address this problem of added sugar to sugary drinks.”

This is a conflation of facts to scare the viewer into thinking a sugar tax is an essential solution to a proven problem. What Martin neglects to mention is that Australian consumption of sugar has decreased while obesity has increased. And within that decreasing consumption, sugary drinks are a decreasing proportion (more on this later). Martin’s alarm over teenagers is also overstated. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found in 2017 that the largest decline in sugar consumption was among children aged 2-18, whose average proportion of energy derived from sugar had declined from 17 per cent in 1995 to 13 per cent in 2012. As the two reports mentioned above found, there is no proven link between obesity and what Martin calls the “problem of added sugar to sugary drinks”.

Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen, quoting a Sydney University research paper: “The findings challenge the widespread belief that energy from added sugars or sugars in solution are uniquely linked to the prevalence of obesity.”

Christensen is correct. The finding of the paper he is quoting has been corroborated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which found in 2017 that “between 1995 and 2011-12, Australians had a relative decrease in their consumption of free sugars, with the average proportion of dietary energy from free sugars declining from 12.5 per cent to 10.9 per cent.” It is arguable, therefore, that the increase in obesity in Australia during this period could be attributed to a range of other factors.

Journalist Michael Brissenden: “That paper (quoted by Christensen) is regularly quoted by pro-sugar politicians and industry.”

We at the MRC also regularly quote the paper, but we are not “pro sugar”. We merely insist that any proposed government policy, especially one involving a discriminatory and regressive tax, must be based on empirical evidence and can demonstrate clear public benefits, especially for Australia’s most disadvantaged. Advocates of this tax can demonstrate neither.

Brissenden: “It (the paper) was produced at the Science Faculty at Sydney University and it’s a follow-up to an earlier 2011 research paper known as the ‘Australian paradox’. Both have been discredited.”

If they have been discredited, why not interview the paper’s co-author, Professor Jennie Brand-Miller? Why not even name her? This is a half-hearted accusation for a flagship program like Four Corners to make. Why? Firstly, the claim that both papers were discredited is incorrect. The first paper, published in 2011, contained a minor error that was immediately corrected. But the correction makes “no material difference to the conclusion” that sugar consumption had declined while obesity increased, Brand-Miller told the MRC this week. “It (the 2011 paper) is a very rare example of a poorly written paper from me.” The second paper drew from more data, and reached the same conclusion. “Did I make sure that paper was clear,” she said. “It is irrefutable evidence. Even my harshest critics have said it’s a good paper.”

George Osborne, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons: “Obesity drives disease. It increases the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease - and it costs our economy £27 billion a year.”

The £27 billion figure is widely quoted in Britain. According to a British fact-checking site, the figure relies on research going back to 2004, and uses “crude” methods to arrive at a contemporary figure. A more recent independent report, Obesity and the Public Purse, in 2017 found a net cost of only £2.47 billion in 2016 prices.

Doctor Kieron Rooney, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney: “Whether or not the plot (of sugar consumption in Australia) is going up or down or a flat line is really open to question. Even if it is on the decline, the data we have shows that what we are consuming now is still too much.”

Dr Rooney implies that Professor Brand-Miller’s report is not so “discredited” after all. He even acknowledged that consumption is possibly “on the decline”.

Brissenden: “Australian public health advocates say we need to do something. And everyone, including industry, knows it.”

This is correct. Obesity is a serious problem. And something must be done. But what? The day after the Four Corners report, a high-profile newspaper columnist joined the health advocates in proposing a sugar tax.

Peter FitzSimons, in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Forget your charges of ‘nanny state’. Exactly the same accusations were made against those who sought to make the tobacco industry pay its way. The critics were ignored and the number of Australians smoking is down from 75 per cent in the 1950s to about 13 per cent now.”

But tobacco is different to soft drinks. If you can’t afford cigarettes, you must quit. If you can’t afford a soft drink, you might buy chocolate instead.

FitzSimons: “And yes, I do have skin in this game, a little excess skin, seeing as you mention it, after stripping 40 kilograms off my frame, since first wrapping my head around the fact that once I cut my sugar, I cut my hunger.”

But FitzSimons didn’t cut only sugar. As he explained in 2015, he also cut processed food and alcohol. More importantly, though, he did it of his own volition. He reduced his weight by choosing to eat healthily. He is living proof that a tax is not necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Brissenden is partly right. “We” - society as a whole - don’t need to do anything, but obese and overweight people do. They should take FitzSimons’ fine example and revise their entire diet, especially of processed food and alcohol. If they need a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages to do this, it will never happen.