National Strategies for the Reduction of Sugar, Fat and Salt in Food and Beverages

Despite all educational efforts, for decades we have been witnessing a growing obesity epidemic - not only in Germany but in most parts of the world. All appeals to the public to eat healthier and exercise more have failed. As a result, there has been a rapid spread of non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, which account for about 3/4 of premature deaths and most of our health care costs. Since the UN Summit on NCD in 2011, many countries consider more structural prevention strategies. Most promising are fiscal attempts to influence consumer behavior according to the WHO slogan: "To make the healthy choice the easier choice". For Germany, a restructuring of the Value-Added Tax is proposed based on the food traffic light system: tax exemption for fruit and vegetables, 7% for "normal" food and 19% for processed products with lots of added sugar, fat or salt. Examples from other countries suggest that price signals work. In Germany, tobacco tax increases have halved cigarette consumption by young people within 10 years, and so called alcopops have almost disappeared since the introduction of a tax on them.