In the early 2010s, the “war on obesity” found a new enemy: sugar. That role had been filled by dietary fat, but a growing understanding of “healthy fats” led to a partial rehabilitation – and, therefore, a vacancy. Amid stories of “benefit scroungers” and austerity’s hit to public services, sugar – with its connotations of greed, laziness, “empty calories”, sinful enjoyment – was the perfect candidate. And so were born the caricatures of armchair-bound, sugar-fuelled fat people that litter the anti-sugar domain.
Its position in the public imagination as the primary cause of ill health and obesity was cemented by the declaration of Action on Sugar’s founder member Simon Capewell in 2014 that “sugar is the new tobacco”. Ever since, sugar has found itself the subject of a raft of newspaper articles, popular science books, self-help guides and national and international policies. This outbreak of “sugar talk” reached a frenzied peak in the UK in 2016 with the announcement of plans to introduce the soft drinks industry levy (“sugar tax”), maintaining momentum well past the launch of the tax in 2018 and into the pandemic.
