{"id":143034,"date":"2016-11-11T19:04:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T17:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=143034"},"modified":"2016-11-11T17:05:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T15:05:08","slug":"is-south-africa-really-the-8th-biggest-sugar-consumer-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/143034\/is-south-africa-really-the-8th-biggest-sugar-consumer-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Is South Africa really the 8th biggest sugar consumer in the world?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African government has decided to tax sugar-sweetened drinks<\/a> to bring down the number of such drinks South Africans buy.<\/p>\n

The tax involves an extra charge of 2.29 cents per gramme of sugar in every sugar-sweetened drink (which includes soft drinks, sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, sports and energy drinks, vitamin water drinks, sweetened iced teas and lemonades), as we explained in a previous report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those for<\/a> and against<\/a> the tax have been vocal. A Bhekisisa article<\/a> recently quoted the director of the Priceless<\/a> health think-tank at the University of the Witwatersrand as saying a sugar tax \u201cis one of the best things that you can do as part of a series of steps to deal with obesity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Professor Karen Hofman<\/a> added: \u201cSouth Africans are the 8th highest sugar consumers globally. Such a tax will cut the consumption of sugary drinks, just as regulation cut tobacco use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is her claim about South Africans\u2019 sugar consumption supported by available data?<\/p>\n

Claim from a report on sugar markets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hofman pointed Africa Check to an overview report published in 2011 by the Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies<\/a> at North Dakota State University in the US as the source of her claim.<\/p>\n

It contains a table<\/a> listing the sugar production and per capita consumption, among other statistics, of a number of countries and world regions. With sugar consumption of 36 kg per person per year, South Africa is 8th on this list.<\/p>\n

The data in the report comes from a US department of agriculture<\/a> database. An analyst at the department, Reed Blauer, said their figures are based on industry data. Starting with the amount of sugar each country begins a year with, they add new sugar produced and whatever sugar is imported. From this, they subtract the sugar exported and whatever stocks are left on factory floors to determine a \u201cdomestic consumption\u201d figure.<\/p>\n

North Dakota State University research scientist and report author, Richard Taylor<\/a>, told Africa Check that they calculate per capita consumption using population data from Economic Insight<\/a>, an economics consultancy.<\/p>\n

Report does not rank worldwide sugar consumption<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the North Dakota State University report is not an accurate ranking of sugar consumption per person around the globe, senior economist Sergey Gudoshnikov at the International Sugar Organisation pointed out to Africa Check.<\/p>\n

That is because the table is not a world ranking, but rather presents consumption levels of a select number of countries. Further, countries in the European Union are grouped together, with an unknown number of countries in the \u201crest of the world\u201d category.<\/p>\n

The International Sugar Organisation<\/a> (ISO) is a forum that represents the the bulk of sugar producing countries worldwide. Gudoshnikov said about 50 member countries provide official reports \u2013 in the case of South Africa, by the South African Sugar Association<\/a> \u2013 but for the rest, the ISO estimates their production and consumption.<\/p>\n

Gudoshnikov added that the ISO\u2019s data, contained in their 2016 Sugar Year Book that one has to pay for, shows that South Africa ranks in the \u201cmiddle of the world table\u201d (between 50th and 60th) for sugar intake per person. This is listed at 34.1 kg per head per year.<\/p>\n

Malaysia, Brazil and Cuba top the ISO\u2019s list for 2015.<\/p>\n

However, Blauer and Gudoshnikov both said that the way in which their organisations calculate sugar consumption does not necessarily represent the amount of sugar consumers\u2019 put in their mouths.<\/p>\n

Gudoshnikov told Africa Check that some researchers \u201cbelieve that \u2018real\u2019 intake is considerably smaller\u201d than the \u00a0ISO\u2019s statistics, but that \u201cthere is no consensus here on whether we are talking about 1%, 5%, 10%, 20% or 40%\u201d.<\/p>\n

What do we know about South Africans\u2019 sweet tooth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health policy economist Dr Evan Blecher<\/a> told Africa Check data from the US department of agriculture on sugar supply is probably as good as it gets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not many other and better sources, since surveillance instruments are slow at catching up in this space,\u201d Blecher told Africa Check. He added that nutritional surveys are needed to \u201cto crack consumption patterns of consumers\u201d but that there are not many of these available.<\/p>\n

For example, South Africa\u2019s major nutritional survey, the 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey<\/a>, scored individuals\u2019 sugar intake as low, moderate or high<\/a> but did not estimate how much sugar they consumed in total.<\/p>\n

Sugar in packaged food & soft drinks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Organisations that track the supply side of sugar, such as the International Sugar Organisation and the US department of agriculture, do not factor in the sugar content of \u00a0imported products.<\/p>\n

An indication of sugar intake from packaged food and soft drinks is supplied by Euromonitor International<\/a>, a global market research company. The company analyses the nutrient profiles of 75,000 food and drink brands in 54 countries worldwide, including sugar and fat.<\/p>\n

Coupled with sales data, Euromonitor calculates average consumption per person in each of the 54 countries, a public sector advisor at Euromonitor, Ruth Bysshe, told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

Bysshe said Euromonitor\u2019s latest data shows that South Africans consume, on average, 47.5 g of sugar per person per day from the packaged food and soft drinks that the company monitors. This placed South Africa 32nd out of 54 countries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The table on which a South African health researcher based her claim that South Africans\u2019 sugar consumption is the 8th highest globally was not complete.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: Claim about South Africans\u2019 sugar intake unlikely to be correct<\/strong><\/p>\n

Data from the global sugar industry body suggests the country lies between 50th and 60th place. However, as this body tracks the production and trade in sugar, we cannot say for sure that it represents actual human intake.<\/p>\n

One reason is that imported and exported sugar-containing products are not reflected in the data. A company that monitors the sale of packaged food and soft drinks told Africa Check that South Africans consume on average 47.5 g of sugar \u2013 or 180 calories \u2013 per person per day through the products they look at.<\/p>\n

(Note: The <\/i>World Health Organisation<\/i><\/a> recommends that sugar intake be less than 10% of someone\u2019s total energy intake. In South Africa, that is 202 calories based on the<\/i>recommended calorie intake for women<\/i><\/a> and 250 calories <\/i>for men.<\/i><\/a>)<\/p>\n

In the absence of nutritional surveys that are comparable across countries, we cannot say for sure where South Africans rank when it comes to \u00a0sugar intake. However, the available data suggests it is much lower than 8th in the world.<\/p>\n

This article was first published by Africa Check – be sure to read the original here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The director of a health think-tank recently said South Africans are the 8th highest consumers of sugar worldwide, but available – and incomplete – data tells a different story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":92344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876,1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-143034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143034"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143074,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143034\/revisions\/143074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}