Grant: Op Grant: Sugar and Health - Pop. Approaches to Reduce Free Sugar Consumption

Eating too much free sugar contributes to excess calorie intake and can increase risk of chronic diseases. Unfortunately, Canadians eat more free sugar than is recommended. There have been several recommendations on how to reduce the amounts of free sugar people eat. These include making packaged foods healthier and reducing the amount of ultra-processed foods that people eat. However, the potential for these approaches to reduce chronic disease deaths in Canada has not been evaluated. The goal of this research project is to determine how many chronic disease deaths can be avoided through three strategies: 1) lowering the total sugar content of Canadian packaged foods (total sugar includes free and naturally-occurring sugars), 2) lowering the free sugar content of Canadian packaged foods, and 3) reducing the proportion of foods in the diet that are ultra-processed. We believe that all strategies will lead to lower free sugar and calorie intakes and fewer deaths, with the greatest success in strategies 2 and 3. Three studies are proposed for this project. The first study will determine the changes in calorie and free sugar content at the food supply level for strategies 1 and 2. We will use the 2017 version of our database of food and beverage labels. The second study will measure the changes in free sugar and calorie intakes of Canadians for all three strategies. Using the results from the first study and food intake data collected in the 2015 Canadian national nutrition survey. Foods will also be classified by the type of processing. The last study will use a modelling program to assess how many deaths could be avoided per year in Canada, as a result of changes in calorie intakes for each of the scenarios in study two. Findings from this project will support national sugar reduction policies and provide information on the predicted effects on free sugar intakes and chronic disease deaths of different population level approaches to reducing sugar intakes.