Supermarket bans sugary drinks "to help cut childhood obesity"

British supermarket giant Tesco has announced plans to ban the sale of sugary drinks aimed at children.Brands such as Ribena and Capri-Sun will be pulled from the shelves in time for when youngsters return to school in September.Tesco’s soft drinks buying manager David Beardmore told The Grocer magazine it was part of the supermarket’s action plan to tackle obesity.Around one-in-three children in Britain is overweight, while around one-in-five is obese.http://www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/107950.htmlA British Medical Association report on children’s diet earlier in July called for a 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks, claiming such a measure would slash the number of people obese by 180,000.http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2015/july/food-for-thought-getting-the-recipe-rightKawther Hashem, nutritionist and researcher for the Action on Sugar group, told the Guardian Tesco’s move was “great news”.http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/28/tesco-stop-selling-childrens-high-sugar-drinks-ribena-capri-sunShe added: “We would very much like to see other sugary food and drink categories in Tesco do something similar and, more importantly, for all the other retailers to also take on this challenge right away.”Euronews analysis of products on sale in Tesco suggests banning such drinks is just one small element of the battle to limit children’s intake of sugar.One of the sweetest children’s drinks we found was Rubicon Mango, which has 13.1 grams of sugar per 100ml.Other popular drinks, likely to be in the same aisle or nearby, have just as much as sugar, such as 7UP, with 11 grams of sugar per 100ml.Other foods – listed under “Kids snacking” and “Lunchbox biscuits” on www.tesco.com – have a lot more sugar.