Alexander Proud is speaking out in defence of sugar

Controversial as it may Seem, Alexander Proud thinks ˜sugar' is getting a bad rep.

Alexander Proud admits that's controversial, but feels œthe blame for everything seems to be laid at the door of sugar.Seriously, is it really more addictive than cocaine? Is it worse than online porn? And how long before Tate & Lyle find a Mumsnet lynch mob at the gates of their Docklands refinery? says Alexander Proud.

Alexander Proud is quick to note that he doesn't believe that the processed food industry and the sugar barons are angels.  œI don't think the 30-40kgs of sugar Brits consume every year is healthy reassures Alexander Proud, and he also says that he œdeplores the way industry funded bodies pose as academic think tanks.

Alex Proud thinks history is to blame

However Alexander Proud notes, that not that long ago we blamed all of the world's health problems on fat. œbefore we decided that actually some, er then most, fats were OK. So this feels very familiar. Alexander Proud feels we are in the middle of œone of our sporadic moral panics where we lay the blame for a problem at a single door when actually the causes are manifold.

Alexander Proud feels that it is a very human tendency to want simple explanations for complex problems that are often partially our own fault.

If you view the sugar debate through this lens you can see that we are depicting sugar as the ultimate bogeyman, and sugar executives as Scarface-like ganglords surrounded by piles of white stuff laughing at their goals of world domination via a Satanic processed food that contains 110g of sugar per 100g of product.

œAs well as being attractively simple this also gets the consumer off the hook. says Alexander Proud. œNone of this is our fault or responsibility but now we can ignore the fact that we all willingly choose to consume too much of the sweet stuff, and point the finger at the devil behind sucrose who is leading us astray, shrug and say ˜what can I do when sugar is so evil.

œBecause we all love a bit of sugar, myself included. says Alexander Proud. œAt one end of the spectrum we have the parents of fat five year olds in pushchairs drinking Coke from baby bottles (squint and you can see the mobility scooter in their futures) and at the other we have middle class metrosexy mums who eat ˜healthy' Starbucks treats every day, without realising that œtreats are supposed to be occasional and ˜healthy' is a meaningless label. Now, we can all throw our hands up and say, œBig Sugar made me do it!

Is education the answer?

For what it's worth, I think the problem has now got so bad that I would slap a tax on high-sugar, low nutrition food. I might even do it without endlessly consulting the food and beverage industry about what would upset them the least. Because, you know, it really would be better if people just stopped drinking Coke altogether. While we're at it, I'd teach far more nutrition in schools and even consider some smoking-style healthy eating propaganda aimed at telling you exactly which products are terrible for you and why. A bit nanny-statish, perhaps. But if you're 30 kilos overweight, perhaps you need someone to nanny you.

Or, as Alex Proud notes, movement?

Alexander Proud also asks why we're singling out sugar. œWhat about the lack of exercise.  There has been a huge decline in manual jobs and most of us get in the car to go to the end of the road. As I know myself, if I am outside and active on a walking weekend, I both feel healthier, look better and have less opportunity to chow down, than when I'm sat at my desk staring at a laptop from dawn to dusk and reaching for snacks to break up the day.

We've all seen builders with Calvin Klein physiques who we know live off kebabs, kit kats, over-sugared tea and lager. Or rockstars who party all night, never look at a vegetable and who are enviably ripped and look like yoga teachers. And I'm not saying either are ˜healthy' but they're also not ˜fat'.

Alexander Proud also notes that the middle classes who never did much manual work are getting much fatter too and that's when it becomes evident that it isn't about being physical all day long, it's the incidental exercise that we have given up. Walking to the shops, cycling to work, doing physical housework or gardening..

Maybe technology is the true culprit.

œThere's significant data to back up sedentary lifestyles as a contributor to gross national obesity. says Alexander Proud.

œBetween 1994 and 2012 UK car ownership rose by 35%, rather more than sugar consumption. All those short journeys where we used to walk or cycle we now do in our gleaming 4 x 4s.

Alexander Proud acknowledges however that this is a complex issue but feels that our politicians are looking for an easy culprit in sugar rather than bending over backwards to look at ways to encourage people to exercise.

œWhy aren't we spending money on infrastructure that makes cycling and walking easier?. It would be a drop in the ocean compared to the millions spent on widening motorways and minuscule compared to the cost of obesity to the NHS. Cycling and walking lobby groups have to beg to get the kind of funding that would barely pay for a motorway lay-by.

Alexander Proud feels that the people we have elected need to do their jobs, œby which I mean: stand up to entrenched interest groups instead of running the country like a business that cares only about its next set of quarterly results.

Alexander Proud also acknowledges that implementing these measures might prove hard.

 œIt might require qualities like moral courage, integrity, convictions and... and I've just looked at a picture of the cabinet. It's a lot easier to shout at the sugar industry isn't it? says Alexander Proud.

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