Health advocacy groups urge Thais to consume less sugar
Local health advocacy groups yesterday urged Thais to follow the global trend towards low-sugar food in order to lower the risk of diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
The groups said that by reducing their sugar intake people would benefit financially, as well as in terms of their health. Since excessive sugar consumption is linked to diseases such as obesity and diabetes and the price has risen from Bt13 to Bt17.25per kilogram, people should take the opportunity to reduce their consumption, Sirikiat Liangkobkit, director of Thai Health Promotion Foundation's Health Risk Factors Control Office, said. Sirikiat said that instead of raising prices to cover the increased cost of sugar, manufacturers should reduce the amount of sugar in their products, which would also lower the country's high sugar consumption. He urged consumers to look for products with low sugar content when shopping for food and drinks, as most people were unaware of how much sugar they consumed. Sirikiat presented a list of 10 drinks he said contained excessive amounts of sugar. At number one was a 500-millilitre carton of iced tea with milk containing 31 teaspoons of sugar, followed by a 250ml carton of green tea with milk containing 26 teaspoons. Third on the list was a 250ml carton of green tea with honey containing 25 teaspoons of sugar, while a can of soft drink contained nine to 11 teaspoons of sugar. "People drink more than one of these drinks a day," he said, urging that children should not consume more than four teaspoons of sugar per day and adults not more than six. Chantana Eungchusak, a dentist from the Antskid Network (Dek Thai Mai Kin Wan), cited the United States as an example of a country that had come to realise the danger of excessive sugar consumption as many of its citizens suffered from obesity. She said the number of low-sugar products in the US had risen from 36 in 1998 to 607 in 2003 and 948 in 2005, while many products for children contained less sugar. Some products even carried a label bigger than the product's brand name indicating how much sugar was in the product. Low-sugar food and drinks have become a global trend and if Thai manufacturers do not act accordingly they will lose out to imported goods, she warned.
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