Ireland should tax all unhealthy food in order to tackle obesity, according to a HSE lead.

A report by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer has recommended a tax on unhealthy food to tackle childhood obesity.

HSE Clinical Lead on obesity Professor Donal O’Shea told Newstalk Breakfast that he thinks Ireland should follow suit.

“I would like to see an expansion of the sugar tax to other ultra-processed foods,” he said.

“We have reached a point now where we have an absolute health crisis day-to-day with trolleys in every emergency department around the country.

“That has been driven by what we eat and drink and I think we should tax that – and we should ring-fence that tax income to generate the capacity we need in our health service.”

A display showing sugary sweets in a shop, 10-9-15. Image: Paula Solloway / Alamy

In March, it was found that 60% of Irish adults are obese or overweight.

Prof O’Shea said the level of consumer protection against harmful foods in Ireland is ‘really poor’.

“I had a friend from New Zealand visit recently and he was horrified at our supermarket layout, he said it is not like that in New Zealand,” he said.

“Portugal have [also] gone ahead of us now in terms of being active in this space saying, ‘you know, enough is enough’.

“We do have an absolute crisis of capacity in our health service; we’re being told we have less money next year than we had this year – and health care is only going to get more expensive.

“So, we can’t do it with less money.”

Tax measures

According to Prof O’Neill, it is an ‘established fact’ that tax measures help to reduce a population’s sugar intake.

“You raise the price and two things happen,” he said.

“The food and drinks industry reformulate and reduce the unhealthy content, the sugar content, etcetera, of their product.

“So, the consumption changes and drops – and if you can change that at a population level by even one percent, you have a massive benefit to health at a population level.”

Prof O’Neill said that many companies make unhealthy, addictive food cheaper than healthy alternatives as a marketing tactic.

Listen back here: