What’s on the news this week:
Every January is the same, tv programmes trying to give the best advice or tell the scariest story of a 55 stone man. Here are 2 that were released on the news this week.
Sugar
The “sugar smart app”, from Public Health England, works by scanning barcodes and revealing total sugar in cubes or grams.
Officials hope it will help combat tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes and encourage families to choose healthier alternatives.
PHE says young children are eating three times more than the sugar limit.
Its new Change4Life advertising campaign, which includes the sugar app, suggests that on average children aged four to ten years old are consuming 22kg of added sugar a year.
That’s about
5,500 sugar cubes – more than the weight of an average five-year-old child.
The app has been developed to raise awareness of how much sugar is contained in everyday food and drink.
It works on more than 75,000 products, offering a quick guide to help parents to assess potential purchases that may harm their children’s health.
Alcohol
The government previously said it had heard “sufficient concerns” from experts about what was known about alcohol and its health risks.
The previous guidelines came out in 1995 and the links between alcohol and cancer and heart disease were not as well understood then as they are now.
It is now known that the risks from alcohol start from any level of regular drinking and rise with the amount being consumed. The new guidelines have been set at a level to keep the risk of mortality from cancers or other diseases “low”.
What does Julie think: eat and drink sensibly, if you drink something from a can or a bottle are you surprised it contains sugar, but do you know how much?
Alcohol has and will always be a health risk, your choice.