Is sugar the next tobacco?

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver talks about growing obesity and exhaustion.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver recently branded sugar as “definitely the next evil.” He proclaimed that sugary foods risk causing a public health crisis similar to smoking and should be taxed in the same way as tobacco. “Sugar is the next tobacco, without a doubt, and that industry should be scared. It should be taxed just like tobacco and anything else that can, frankly, destroy lives,” he said, reported Daily Mail.

He argued that the ingredient should be targeted because of the burden it places on the National Health Service. He reiterated the fact that sugary diets are one of the main factors in increasing obesity and Type-2 diabetes. According to Al-Arabiya News, the chef expressed his support for France’s imposition of taxes on sugary drinks and holds that Britain should follow suit.

UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ruled out taxing sugar last year, but confessed that more needed to be done to tackle childhood obesity. Oliver said, “I’m not passionate about taxing, but when you look at the pot of cash that isn’t getting any bigger, and if you think that 68 per cent of every case that goes through the NHS is diet-related, then yes, you need radical change,” reported the Telegraph.

The average Briton consumes 238 teaspoons of sugar each week, often without knowing, since processed foods today are laden with sugar. A third of British children and two-thirds of British adults are classed as obese or overweight, while the number with diabetes has doubled in the past two decades.

The 39-year-old campaigner also disclosed that he personally found himself on the edge of burning out from exhaustion last year, while managing his business empire alongside a thriving television career. “It’s not as if I felt bad at the time or I didn’t think I felt bad, but with hindsight, I didn’t look great. I didn’t feel alive,” he commented. “I was functioning but, looking back, there was this feeling that I had to rev up to do it. I was exhausted all the time and no wonder,” he added.

The chef also revealed how he had been forced to rejuvenate his lifestyle because overwork had left him drained and struggling to endure on nightly three-and-a-half hours of sleep. “When I wasn’t at work, I could fall asleep at a minute’s notice, not that I got the chance with the kids. On the weekend, they want to play.”

Oliver, who runs multiple restaurants across the country, also criticised EU regulations limiting working hours for employees. He said, “What’s a 48-hour week in a kitchen? I mean, really, that’s called a holiday. The average was 80 hours when I started, and to people running their own places, this is probably still standard.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th,  2015.

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