No magic bullet to reducing childhood obesity

IN the article "Time to bring sugar into the 'sin tax' net" (BT, Feb 1), Vikram Khanna labelled sugar "a health hazard" and the root cause of obesity and non-communicable diseases. He also suggested that perhaps a sugar-sweetened tax is the intervention to reduce incidents of obesity, basing his opinion on comments made in the World Health Organisation's Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO) report published last week.

While the ECHO report does state that "there is sufficient rationale to warrant the introduction of an effective tax on sugar-sweetened beverages", it also clearly articulates that "no single intervention can halt the rise of the growing obesity epidemic". Also, the report highlights that "only a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach can stem the rise of obesity", which was not addressed in the article.

The co-chairs of the report, Sir Peter Gluckman and Dr Sania Nishtar, have commented in Newsweek and elsewhere that "there is no magic bullet" to solve the obesity problem.