Sugar tax in the UK. Polish friends addicted?

A few of my Polish friends here in London say they are addicted to sugar, is this because the Polish contains more sugar than that of the Western diet? I always thought the Polish diet was healthier due to lots of meat and veg. Anyway, as a sugar addict myself (yes I suffer withdrawal) perhaps the possibility of the new sugar tax theyve announced today may be a good thing.

Probably we are all (Europeans) addicted to sugar tbh, in one form or another.

Why should I be taxed on sugar because some over weight lazy gits and irresponsible parents who allow their kids to stuff their faces with products full of sugar?Its the most ridiculous thing I have heard for a while.What next meat tax because to much red meat is no good for us?

@NoWay: Polish diet "healthy"???? It is even worse than eating at McDo!!! Only starches and grease and TONS of salt, pork and greasy sausage and as to vegetables and fruit, very limited ;). I prefer McDo...

White sugar kills, but it doesn't take much willpower to avoid it - after a while you stop liking it. I suppose the tax will help the NHS treat the obese.

If anything should be taxed though, it's wędliny, especially kielbasa. Apparently as carcinogenic as ciggies.

@Jon: yes, that bloody wędliny!!!!!!! It probably causes a lot of cancer. This morning on an overcrowed (normal) tram, I was just behind a guy who had wędliny sandwiches in his backpack, it stank like in hell.

I personally don't know why the NHS should treat the obese. Smokers are routinely refused surgery, even when their condition is in no way linked to smoking, why should people who simply cannot control their greed for food be treated any better?

@Harry: people are fat, even obese, for a lot of reasons including psychological and hormonal (for instance thyroid) disorders. Since a lot of overweight/obesity cases result from bad eating habits, school should teach nutrition (when I was in primary school, we had some lessons). Also, authorities through media should educate people. I watch a lot of BBC programs and what do I see? People eating pizza with fries or fries with spaghetti ;)

Oh Harry you know the words of "self accountability", "self control", self responsibility" have been lost in this generation.
It's pepsi's fault for all the sublimatel advertising they do.
MODERATION is the key.


Yes it does as white refined sugar is poison to the human body.
This is what cancer feeds on.
Cancer can not live in an Alkaline body.
What does this tell you about sugar ?
The three foods that kill you if not eaten in moderation, sugar, salt and grease.
Try going a week with zero tolerance for any of the three.

The Government will start on limiting sugar, then THEY will tell us that coffee is bad, then that butter is bad, then that milk is bad, then that meat is bad for us, then something else is bad - where will it all end?.

Do human adults really have to be lead by the hand and shown what they should and should not eat?
Maybe the Government should provide 'catering facilities' i.e. large places (canteens) where everyone will have to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea. No one will be able to buy food for themselves. The food shops will only sell to the Government and they will arrange to feed the public - for which the public will have to pay. Is this where we are going?

OK, some people do have hormonal conditions or other health problems, but the vast majority are simply obese because they cannot control their greed for food.

I personally have very mixed feelings about this sugar tax. I fail to understand why people who do control their desire to over-eat should be forced to pay because some people cannot control their desire to over-eat.

Soylent Green?

As far as I'm aware, there is no new sugar tax. Cameron ruled it out yesterday saying there are more effective ways of tackling obesity.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-rules-out-sugar-tax-there-are-more-effective-ways-of-tackling-obesity-a6704316.html

Harry you shouldn't instantly connect it with obesity so wind your neck in. I am addicted to sugar BUT I work out most days and am slim. Over eat my ar#e! I am slim - not overweight in the slightest! Blows your ridiculous theory out the water Harry!

Pigsy........oh I mean NoWay, I think you should lighten up on Harry.


We pay for alcoholics, we pay for cigarette smokers, we pay for illegal migrants, we pay for the welfare people that are budgetly impaired or just plain lazy, we pay for all kinds of people that have no self control or accountability because they are allowed to be "enabled" by the socialist government give away programs.

There is nothing more annoying then to go to the grocery store and see a bunch of obese people riding around the store in the electric carts provided for the elderly and disabled with the basket filled up with frozen pizza's, a case of pepsi, hotdogs, potato chips, cream filled jelly rolls, ice cream with NO vegetables or fruits.

They get up to the cash register to pay and out comes the FREE Welfare government food stamp card to pay for it all.
So in essence we pay to make them fat and we pay to care for them when they get diabetes, high blood pressure, have heart attack and strokes.......all in the name of stupidity.

We are forced to pay for the monster that the government has created with these "entitlements" that are killing the dumb and lazy people that have no self control or self worth.

The sugar tax along with banning these products from being free to welfare recipients would be a start.

That BS again. How about using your brain for once? In 1965 for example, 42.4% of the American population smoked. Cigarettes were an important and accepted part of social life, and now - after all these years - you want to blame these smokers for the lack of self control? I'd bet you smoked, popped pills and got p*issed as well. Not to mention the countless times you wolfed down a pizza or a Quarter Pounder.

infoplease.com/ipa/A0762370.html

FWIW: just wait until the GOP and their voters have succeeded to ditch Obamacare and the health insurers are once again allowed to charge people with pre-existing conditions an arm and a leg, are able to reintroduce lifetime benefit caps, and are free to kick you out once you cost too much. One day you will be old, my friend, and then you can only hope that you'll simply drop dead and won't end up sick in a long term care facility that will ruin you and your family financially.

This makes sense, though the revenue from the tax would have been useful I suppose.

Last time I went to the doctor in the UK, I was called into the nurses' room for a health talk (apparently they have to do it every so often now) where they asked about 5-a-day, cigarettes, booze and all that. I got a lecture about healthy eating, red meat etc. They didn't bother weighing me saying "we can see right away that you're not obese". The irony was that both nurses weren't just fuller figured but actually massive. Sort of do as I say, not as I do.

At least they care, at least they were nice about it, the weight thing was probably embarrassing for them to have to ask people about (it's a rough area and I can imagine some of the comments they get) and thank God we have the NHS.

I think I'd rather be fat and happy than thin and miserable. I'm lucky that something (genes? taste in food? drinking/smoking habits? something else?) keeps me (apart from a bit of middle aged spread) away from extremes.

I would say not especially, considering most Western countries consume far too much of the stuff.
Poles tend to do far more cooking from scratch, while here in the UK i think it's becoming a dying art in the light of ready meals etc, where there tends to be a lot of hidden sugar ( and salt for that matter ).

If anything, the Polish diet is salt rather than sugar laden.


Very true. I gave up sugar in tea and coffee about 20 years ago. On the occasions where someone has accidentally added sugar, i've found drinks to be undrinkable, like drinking sryup!


With this government I have real doubts that it would have been spent where they said it would be.
For once I agree with Cameron though, I don't think a sugar tax is the answer.
Not that i drink Coke, fizzy drinks etc, but the cheaper varieties are so damn cheap anyway, that taxing them wouldn't have made that much difference to the price.

All you can do is educate people and some will take no notice anyway. Even if you take away the obesity problems caused by too much sugar intake ( and of course other foods ), you'd have to be dumb not to realise that at the very least, too much sugar is going to result in a mouthful of rotting teeth.

I have over three hundred young adult university students this year. Not a single one could be described as obese. Three or four are on the porky side, but all the others are in trim. In which other European nation could this be seen?


That's a fact.

@Roger: at the university, you have mostly "rich" kids. All studies say that Polish kids are close to be the fattest in the EU. Compare with for instance the Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Spanish and even the French kids! You'll see, that as we go South, people tend to be less fat (better diet and a lot of fruit, vegetables, fish..).

I'll tell them that on Monday! It'll brighten up their day.


I'd be interested to see some of the stats. I can only offer the evidence of my own eyes. There are certainly more fat Polish kids than there used to be, but it's nothing like the UK, for example.

It's already started.
Today, we are told, by the BBC no less, that there is evidence that RED MEAT is bad for you. So cut out sugar (and all products containing sugar), CUT OUT red meat (and all products containing red meat and items which purport to be from meat).

White-meat producers must be rubbing their hands in joy.

@Terri: sure, that red meat is bad and also can cause cancer. As to white meat, if we consider hormon and other sh@@t fed chickens ;). What to eat??????

Most of the Poles I know cook from scratch with pretty wholesome food. I would say there is a reliance on greasy things which is bad for a different reason but Poland never struck me as a place where people have high sugar diets (although I am from the UK and so see the extreme)

I Was addicted to sugar, but them one word solved that:

Stevia.

Their ultimate goal is to tax the usage of Oxygen which will make us the ultimate slaves. After this happened there will be a revolution in the mankind's insight on what's our true objective. If there is any. The possible outcome of that ineluctable upheaval is beyond the capabilities of my imagination.

Interestingly InPolska, the most obese children in Europe come from the Czech rep, and Poland and the UK are about level.
French children are still relatively sleek ...;)

i100.independent.co.uk/article/these-are-the-most-obese-countries-in-the-world--gyEoNT9Esx

Haha the ultimate aim is to tax the use of Oxygen. In the nanny state that is Britain that is not as far away as one might imagine.

roz, I know it's not scientifically valid evidence, but when I walk down the street in Poland I don't see many fat kids. In the UK they are everywhere.

I agree, roger, I was also surprised!