As the war on diabetes is on Singapore’s public health agenda, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is recommending possible measures to reduce sugar intake. The measures proposed include banning and taxing some pre-packaged sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), tightening regulations on advertising to children, and mandatory labelling of the healthiness levels. The public and stakeholders affected will be able to give their comments on the proposed measures through a website portal, REACH, as well as in dialogue panels with Health Promotion Board (HPB) and MOH.
Some of these measures have already been implemented in other countries to tackle the growing health concerns over high sugar intake causing obesity and diabetes.
Read the full article on Channel NewsAsia: MOH consulting public on banning, taxing some sugary drinks to fight diabetes
Analysis:
The general health of a society is important to maintain because it affects everyone’s ability to function well and to have a high quality of life. Thus, it is imperative for governments to care about their citizens’ health. To control the costs of healthcare for the individual, the government can provide subsidised affordable healthcare and reduce the need for the individual to seek treatments. The latter would entail encouraging healthy lifestyles and making healthier options more appealing than unhealthy ones.
At the same time, lifestyle choices are highly personal so public consultation is useful in gauging how they would react to the measures. It might seem like a good idea to regulate the industry top-down, but the public might have a different view on it – that it could be too invasive or that there could be better solutions.
Questions for further personal evaluation:
- Why do you think it is important for the government to regulate citizens’ sugar intake?
- Would it make a difference if the measures were implemented without public consultations? Why or why not?
Useful vocabulary:
- ‘mandatory’: compulsory
Picture credits:https://pixabay.com/en/spoon-fork-cutlery-icing-sugar-2426623/