U.K. report proposes food tax to combat obesity — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00a new report in the uk is proposing that
2. 0:02the best way to get
3. 0:03fruits and vegetables onto people's
4. 0:05plates could be through doctor's orders
5. 0:08it's calling for prescription vegetables
6. 0:10and a three billion pound tax on junk
7. 0:12food
8. 0:12to help fight the country's obesity
9. 0:14problem tessara cilia is following this
10. 0:16story for us from london
11. 0:18okay so tessa what exactly is this
12. 0:20report recommending
13. 0:23well you asked the question should it be
14. 0:25just what the doctor ordered so this
15. 0:27report was looking
16. 0:29at the food system how to reform the
17. 0:31food system in order to first of all
18. 0:33make the population healthier but also
19. 0:35to protect
20. 0:35the public health system and one of the
21. 0:37suggestions is indeed
22. 0:39so first of all to tax sugar and salt as
23. 0:41well as to get doctors
24. 0:43to prescribe fruit and vegetables
25. 0:44officially prescribe them to their
26. 0:46patients now look
27. 0:47this is already happening to a certain
28. 0:49extent doctors are telling their
29. 0:50patients you've got to do this to stay
30. 0:52healthier
31. 0:52and one charity says that they already
32. 0:54do have some patients being referred to
33. 0:56them by doctors take a listen to
34. 0:58how it works for them so what are aiming
35. 1:01to do is to reduce gp
36. 1:03consultations to reduce hospitalizations
37. 1:06and to try and tackle in a holistic way
38. 1:10how to help people improve their health
39. 1:12and well-being
40. 1:15now the issue here arthi is that this is
41. 1:18essentially amounting to
42. 1:19again telling people what they should
43. 1:21and shouldn't do one of the arguments uh
44. 1:23coming up here but the problem really is
45. 1:25quite big here in the uk
46. 1:26there are 64 000 deaths a year related
47. 1:29to health and obesity and it's costing
48. 1:31the economy some
49. 1:3274 billion pounds and of course there's
50. 1:34also that
51. 1:35impact on climate change of global food
52. 1:37production so this is what that study
53. 1:39was looking into in how exactly to be
54. 1:41able to
55. 1:42help a change and just reform the entire
56. 1:46system itself now there is also the
57. 1:48issue of
58. 1:49if you tax sugar and salt what does that
59. 1:51mean for consumers especially those
60. 1:53that will be most impacted by them those
61. 1:55in the lower income category
62. 1:57take a listen to this woman who says
63. 1:58that it is really difficult to be able
64. 1:59to afford
65. 2:00healthier food for her take a listen we
66. 2:02had an ideal amount of fruit and veg in
67. 2:05our diet
68. 2:06it would be easier to
69. 2:09create stuff i suppose that was easy to
70. 2:12eat
71. 2:13you need variety and it's the variety
72. 2:15that costs
73. 2:17i could and pay for it but it means
74. 2:19something else has to go
75. 2:23it is a big issue with different factors
76. 2:26different sides of the argument i mean
77. 2:28they're also looking at
78. 2:29improving education food education in
79. 2:32systems but
80. 2:33i think the the realization here of the
81. 2:35government that's why they ordered this
82. 2:37study is that something has got to
83. 2:39change because the health
84. 2:40of the society isn't getting better
85. 2:43arthi
86. 2:43and you know we've found globally i
87. 2:45guess around the world that
88. 2:47after the past year and a half so many
89. 2:49underlying issues have sort of been
90. 2:50brought to the surface during the course
91. 2:52of the pandemic
92. 2:53and the report's author actually says
93. 2:55that that was partially the case here
94. 2:56when it comes to the painful reality
95. 2:58check when it comes to food and health
96. 3:01how has covert 19 really shed a light on
97. 3:03those issues in the uk
98. 3:05yeah we had uh the lead author of this
99. 3:08report hendry dimbleby he said look this
100. 3:10was a
101. 3:10massive wake-up call and it is not
102. 3:13something new during this pandemic the
103. 3:15chief of the world health organization
104. 3:16he did say earlier this year that there
105. 3:18is compelling evidence that obesity
106. 3:20is linked to covet deaths now the data
107. 3:24from johns hopkins earlier this year and
108. 3:25the who
109. 3:27showed that for countries with a
110. 3:28population with less than 50
111. 3:30of them obese there is only a 10th risk
112. 3:33of dying from covet and it gets higher
113. 3:35as the population gets more obese so
114. 3:37this is the kind of evidence
115. 3:38that really came out during this
116. 3:40pandemic and here in the uk
117. 3:42alone i mean the obesity rate here is
118. 3:44above 60
119. 3:46percent and or you know kobe deaths here
120. 3:48was one of the highest in the world so
121. 3:49there is a correlation
122. 3:51and even the prime minister himself has
123. 3:53acknowledged you know that this is
124. 3:54something that
125. 3:54really needs to be addressed arthi thank
126. 3:57you for this tessa