By David Arome
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are popular drinks in the Nigerian market. They are sold in shops, kiosks, on the streets, and by hawkers everywhere. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines sugar-sweetened beverages as all beverages containing free sugar or other sweeteners. They come in refined, well-packaged forms. Some are imported while others are locally made. They are addictive as the more they are consumed, the more they are desired.
Jemimah Adah is a 17-year-old girl who lives in Maraba, Nasarawa State. She lives with her grandmother after the demise of her parents. Her grandmother trained and enroled her in a government school in her early years. Jemimah had a habit of taking SSBs, influenced by her friends.
She became addicted to SSBs during her primary school years, to the point where she lost an appetite for eating. She continued until she became obese and ill and went to the hospital for treatment. The doctor informed her that she had diabetes. She felt sad and wept all day, but that could not help solve the problem. Jemimah lived all her life on medication.
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Curtailing SSBs consumption on campus
A 300-level medical student at Benue State University, Makurdi, Benue State, Dooshima Abu, is working to minimise the impact of SSBs on young people.
“Championing the course to curb SSBs consumption among students on campus is my passion,” she said. Her SSBs awareness project on campus is targeted at seeing a healthy young generation in Nigeria.
She has observed over time that the consumption of local and refined SSBs among students is on the rise, noticing that some of the students have substituted SSBs for healthy foods. “This trend is detrimental to the health of young people in the long run, with health implications, and in some cases may lead to addiction,” she further said.
Abu noted that young people formed an important demographic and their health was crucial in building a vibrant and healthy nation. She leverages the faculty departmental meeting, seminar, and lecture hours to educate her peers and other students on the need to reduce SSBs consumption, understand the sugar tax policy and the health implications of excessive consumption of SSBs, .
The pet project is gradually recording success as a handful of students are now enlightened on SSBs, their health implications, and the sugar tax policy. “The creation of awareness is still in its pilot phase, with the hope of scaling it up beyond the present institution,” she added.
Trends, health implications
The consumption of SSBs has increased exponentially over time, especially among young people. The consumption pattern of SSBs per year in Nigeria is estimated at 40 million litres. The worst hit are young people, with free sugar consumption higher than the WHO recommended limit of less than 10 percent of total energy intake. Most young people do not realise that the so-called healthy alternative drinks also contain high amounts of sugar, which is highly toxic and addictive, and negatively affects the body’s organs in many ways.
The WHO says that people who consume one to two cans or more of sugar-sweetened beverages on a regular basis are more prone to and have a 26 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people who rarely consume such drinks. In Nigeria, over 12 million people live with diabetes – the highest on the continent.
Excessive consumption of SSBs is associated with overweight, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. According to the WHO 2020 report, diseases linked to obesity are now among the three leading causes of deaths globally.
An online survey through a cloud-based platform (Google Form) conducted by David Arome to assess knowledge and perceptions on SSBs. The responses of the participants are shown in the infographic and chats below:
What exactly is sugar tax policy?
The sugar tax policy as contained in Finance Act was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2021. All sugar-containing non-alcoholic and carbonated beverages produced domestically in Nigeria are subject to a N10 per litre tax. The manufacturers are billed directly, as against taxing the drinks at the point of sale. The sugar tax is a renewed effort of the Federal Government to discourage the high consumption of SSBs and to generate extra revenue in funding health-related and other critical expenditures.
The sugar policy tax rate is far short of the WHO’s 20 percent recommendation. Only a few African countries have imposed taxes on sugary drinks. A research published by Global Health Action on seven east and southern African countries—Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia – further established the existence of an excise tax on sugary drinks, but they all fell below the WHO’s 20 percent recommended benchmark.
According to a four-year study of 113,000 households conducted in Southern Africa and published in The Lancet in April 2021, there had been a nearly 40 percent decline in sugar consumption in taxed beverages among South Africans.
A respondent in Abuja, James Ali, said: “I consume a lot of carbonated drinks to gather energy for work.” Ali, a bus conductor, said the nature of his work necessitated the daily consumption of carbonated drinks to function optimally. He noted that addiction to carbonated drinks was a possibility for him due to excessive consumption, which was translating into cravings.
When asked if he was aware of the sugar tax policy, he said this was the very first time he had heard about it.
Health experts react
A nutrition specialist at the Africa Youth Growth Foundation, Ibrahim Ahmed, said SSBs were endemic among young people.
The nutrition specialist noted that SSBs could harm the human body with excessive consumption, noting that research had successfully established a causal link between excessive intake of sugar sweetened beverages and the development of obesity, diabetes as well as a number of other adverse health consequences.
According to a medical laboratory scientist at Defense Reference Laboratory, Abuja, Gloria Agbo, the high consumption of SSBs among young people was being triggered by many factors. The most noticeable among them were tastes, friends’ influence, peer pressure, availability of SSBs during parties, among others.
Agbo noted that substituting SSBs with natural fruit juice, increased awareness, and education of young people on the consequences and health implications of excessive SSB intake would go a long way in curtailing them. She enjoined parents to reduce the stockpiling of their children’s lunch boxes with SSBs and instead go for healthy foods.
The nutrition specialist commended the government for its sugar tax policy targeted at curbing excessive SSBs consumption, calling on the government to review the policy and strengthen awareness creation of the policy.
She noted that If the trend in SSB addition was not addressed promptly, the country would be left with a young, sick generation facing a massive financial burden to care for their health.
She added that adopting a healthy lifestyle such as adhering to the recommended daily sugar intake limit and raising awareness of SSBs could potentially keep the addiction at bay and produce a young, healthy generation.
Credit Statement: This story was supported by Gatefield Pro-Health Journalism Fellowship