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12:07
Time to Tax Sugar to Combat Health Crisis
Around 35 million people die each year of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. American academics believe that the reason for that is sugar. Sugar is the main enemy of our health so it should be identified alongside alcohol and tobacco as a health danger, and governments should tax sweetened drinks and food as part of their efforts to combat it. Will Russian government also take any measures against sugar-consumption or is it up to everybody to choose the necessary amount of this sweet thing per day?
I think that in this case we can speak about such TV-programms as "Life Environment" ("Среда обитания") on the First Channel. There should be explained how harmful sugar can be. It is also a duty of our doctors in charge who should remind people about a set of deseases that can be avoided by people if they comply with simple orders. It'll be a kind of a short lecture, I suppose. And, I also think that some foodstuff with high concentration of sugar must has a special warning note on its package saying that the product has concentration of sugar that can be harmful for one's health.
I agree with you but I suppose that airing some commercials on the health problems that sugar can cause won't take so much effort and won't cost that much money but people will learn more about this problem and think about their health more. Constant repetition of one and the same thing can be effective.
I think that Russian government won't bother. The greatst problem of our country, alchohol addiction, isn't solved yet. In my opinion it's up to everybody to control their everyday level of sugar.
