Sugar Is the New Public Health Enemy

糖类成为新健康公敌

On Thursday, the U.S. government issued a new version of its dietary guidelines, which include the new, concrete recommendation that people receive less than 10 percent of their daily calorie intake from added sugar.

本周四，美国政府发布了新版膳食指南，其中新增了对人们日常添加糖摄入量不超过每日卡路里10%的建议。

This is far more specific than the 2010 edition of the guidelines, which simply said to “reduce the intake of calories … from added sugars,” with no particular numbers attached. Based on Americans’ increasing sugar intake over the past few decades, a more concrete goal might be helpful—between 1977 and 2010, Americans’ consumption of added sugars went up by 30 percent, according to the Obesity Society.

这项建议比2010年的版本更加明确，2010版只是简单地说：“减少从添加糖中摄入卡路里”，并没有任何明确的数字标准。基于美国人在过去几十年摄入了更多的糖，一个更清晰的目标会更有帮助。据肥胖协会统计，从1977年到2010年，美国人添加糖的摄入量增长了30%。

These days, though, many people seem to be at least trying to cut back—as my colleague Olga Khazan noted the other day, Google searches for “low-sugar” diets are starting to overtake “low-fat” diets. And so it seems that sugar is moving into the slot of Bad Thing of the Moment, once held by fat, once by carbs more broadly, and held by who knows what in the future—nutrition science is always evolving.

尽管如今人们好像已经开始做出一点点努力，(正如我同事几天前发现的Olga Khazan)，Google上关于“低糖”饮食的搜索已经超过了“低脂”饮食。那么糖类好像已经进入了脂肪之前所在的坏东西之列，之前碳水化合物更臭名远扬。而未来谁会取代这个位置仍是个未知数，毕竟营养学一直都在发展。

But for the time being, the U.S. isn’t the only country trying to get people off the sweet stuff. David Cameron, the prime minster of the U.K., said on Thursday that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a sugar tax as a measure against the obesity crisis, the BBC reports. A paper by Public Health England, published in October 2015, recommended a tax of between 10 and 20 percent on “high-sugar products … such as on full-sugar soft drinks.” Though Cameron said he would “rather avoid” a tax, he also said, “What matters is we do make progress” on obesity.

但是美国并非眼下唯一努力让人们离开甜食的国家。据BBC报道，周四，英国首相卡梅隆说他不会排除将征收食糖税作为对抗肥胖危机的方法。英国公共卫生署于2015年十月出版的一篇文章建议对“全糖软饮料之类的高糖产品”征收10%到20%的税。尽管卡梅隆说他会“尽力避免”收税，他也说到“重要的是我们的确在努力”解决肥胖问题。

The evidence suggests a tax would likely lead to progress—according to a recent study published in The BMJ, when Mexico implemented a tax on sugary beverages on January 1, 2014, purchases of the taxed beverages went down by 12 percent by December of that year.

证据表明征税会促使饮食习惯的进步。近期在BMJ上出版的一份研究表明，在墨西哥从2014年元旦对含糖饮料征税之后，2014年的含糖饮料消费量下降了12%。

Legislating sugar is a strategy that’s popped up in the U.S. as well—Berkeley, California, was the first U.S. city to implement a soda tax in March 2015. But no word yet on whether Berkeley residents are any closer than the rest of the country to meeting the new dietary guidelines.

立法征税也是在美国突然出现的一种策略。加州的伯克利在2015年3月开始对苏打饮料征税，在美国境内算首例。但是没有消息表明伯克利市民是否比其他城市的居民拥有更符合新版膳食指南的饮食习惯。