The New Zealand Doctor Who Wants to Wipe Out Soft Drinks

If Gerhard Sundborn gets his way, you won't be able to get any of this in New Zealand. Photo via Flickr user Rachel Young

New Zealand is in bad shape—literally, the country isn't very physically fit. Last year a report from the United Nations named the nation the 12th fattest in the world, following in the slightly deeper footsteps of obesity-stricken countries like the United States and Mexico. A recent health survey of the country found that 65 percent of adults and one in three children are obese or overweight. The best way to push back against this fatty tide, say some doctors, is to cut back on fizzy, sugary drinks. One group, FIZZ, even wants to eliminate soft drinks altogether. That's a pretty lofty goal, so the organization has given itself until 2025 to reach it—already, Dr. Gerhard Sundborn, FIZZ's founder, has formed the New Zealand Beverage Guidance Panel, which will present parliament with a list of recommendations next month, including a divisive “sugar tax” similar to the one introduced last year in Mexico.

I spoke to Sundborn to learn more about his crusade.

VICE: How serious are you about eradicating soda drinks from New Zealand by 2025?
Gerhard Sundborn: We are absolutely serious about this issue and we see it as being highly important because of the harmful effects of those drinks. It’s well evidenced that sugary drinks increase cavities and rotten teeth; they also increase the risk of a lot of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and there is beginning to be more and more evidence that a high intake of these drinks is related to behavioral problems and impaired cognitive development. And also cancer.

What kind of behavioral problems?
Just kids not being able to concentrate. There have been studies that have shown links to suicide, and studies that have used mice have shown that sugar stimulates the same pleasure areas of the brain that drugs do. So that indicates that sugary drinks are addictive.

Children are a major focus for FIZZ. Are they consuming too many soft drinks?
Yeah, sugary drinks are the largest source of added sugar to children’s diets. Some research has shown that around 30 to 40 percent of our children consume sugary drinks five days a week.

Doesn't that come down to poor parenting? These kids are being given the drinks, or the money for the drinks, by someone.
Well, children increasingly make their own choices and don’t adhere to advice from parents or public health messages—they are more concerned with other things. To expect them to listen and do as they're told is unrealistic, especially in an environment that encourages the sale and consumption of large servings of sugar-sweetened beverages—for example, you can buy 1.5-liter [50-ounce] bottles for just $1.50.

Why not target fruit juice and similar drinks that also have high sugar content?
We think we are more likely to get traction on the issue if we are quite specific in what we are addressing. And because fizzy drinks are the largest component of those beverages that are sold, and there is no real nutritional value in them. You can argue that milk and fruit drinks have vitamins that are beneficial, but the fizzy drinks have no goodness whatsoever.

The drink industry is made up of massive corporations, like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Do you think they feel threatened by you?
I think for any business, anything that could impact its bottom line will be regarded as a threat that it needs to keep an eye on. But [the soda companies] have the alternative option of making drinks with sugar alternatives, such as Stevia. So there is some common ground that can be worked on, where industry can play a role and be part of a solution. And I think that can happen.

How are you going to reach your 2025?
We want to work with industry and work with community, but also try to get the government to take on this issue as a priority and address unhealthy diets and obesity. Initially, I think we have to make the public more aware of how much sugar is in these drinks. I think most people know that a lot of sugar is bad for you and there is a lot of sugar in fizzy drinks, but they don’t actually know how much. And they don’t know how much sugar they should be consuming in a day.

How much sugar is in a can of soda?
Well, firstly, the American Heart Association has recommended a daily upper limit for sugar at three teaspoons for child, six for a woman, and nine for a man. And in a standard can there is 11 teaspoons. In your most commonly sold size here in New Zealand, which is the 600-milliliter [20-ounce] bottle, there are about 16 to 18 teaspoons. And on top of that there is sugar in 90 percent of the foods that sit on our supermarket shelves.

So you’re taking a list of recommendations to the government next month, including a sugar tax?
Yes, we have proposed a sugar tax of 20 percent on sugar-sweetened beverages.

New taxes are notoriously unpopular. How are you going to sell that to the government and the public?
Well, putting a tax on these products will make these products more expensive, so it will decrease sales. And revenue gained can be put into promoting why they are not good for you. The tax would be regressive, and some people argue that is not good because poor people will be affected by it, but we think that’s good, because poorer communities are the ones most affected by these products. Other people don’t like the idea of taxing food, because they say it’s part of a “nanny state,” but we feel that when you weigh up the huge amount of evidence of the harm these products do, then it totally justifies taxing a product like this, as we do with taxing tobacco and taxing alcohol.

So you want to treat soda like a drug?
I believe it is. The science doesn’t wholeheartedly support that it is addictive, but anecdotally people talk about getting their “sugar fix” or their “sugar high.” You watch children. If you say you have lollies, they will do everything and anything for a lolly. I think it’s pretty addictive myself—the scientific evidence isn’t there yet, but I’m quite confident it will get there.

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