EDITING MASTERY FINAL VERSION Traffic-Light Rules to Tackle Sri Lanka Diabetes Scourge As a teenager, Ravi Fernando would guzzle as many as five bottles of his favourite soft drink every day after a workout. Now a chronic diabetes sufferer, the 30-year-old wishes he’d known that his sweet tooth was ruining his dream of becoming a world-famous athlete. Thankfully, fellow Sri Lankans will be able to make smarter choices about how they quench their thirst, following new rules that will force beverage makers to reveal potentially hazardous sugar levels in soft drinks. From August 1, all soda companies will have to smack a colour code on their bottles showing consumers, at a glance, whether the sugar content may be harmful. The traffic-light labelling system will help people instantly to know whether the heap of sugar in a soft drink is high, medium, or low. Red will indicate that the sugar content is more than 11 grams per 100 millilitres, while amber points to a dose of between 2g and 11g. Green denotes that the drink has a sugar content of less than 2g. The government plans later to introduce a similar colourcoding system to expose salt and fat content in various types of food. Spoonful of Measures The latest measures, based on World Health Organization guidelines for healthy sugar consumption, have been in the works for five years. The plans were unveiled by the minister for health, nutrition, and indigenous medicine, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne. Under the new rules, cafes, restaurants, and other food outlets will also have to offer sugar and salt separately to customers—instead of packing them inside a meal or hot drink. Minister Senaratne said taxes on sugar will also increase as part of a package of new health-boosting measures. The colour codes will appear alongside other musthave information on food and drink items, such as the list of ingredients, details about their nutritional value, allergy warnings, and expiry dates. The measures will make it a lot easier for people to choose healthier drinks. It would be clear to anyone, for instance, that a drink with a green label was the healthiest choice, while an amber colour would mean that the beverage was safe enough to gulp down most of the time. Sweet-Tooth Nation The government was prompted to act as the nation’s health continues to worsen. According to some health professionals, the average Sri Lankan ingests about 60g of sugar each day—much more than the recommended daily dose of between 10g and 12g, or roughly three teaspoons. Local health experts also say that excessive sugar in soft drinks is contributing to a rising number of cases of life-threatening diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer. “I hope this colour code would help people to identify healthier options,” the health minister said, adding that more than 70% of people seeking treatment in government hospitals presented with illnesses linked to overconsumption of sugar, salt, and fat. Obesity is another concern: overweight children, in particular, are more likely to develop illnesses such as type-2 diabetes in later life. The latest measures are part of a wider government push to improve the health of Sri Lankans that also includes forcing tobacco companies to carry bigger health warnings on cigarette packets. Salty Response The minister has also said another of his ambitions is to make Sri Lanka’s healthcare system as good as others in more developed countries. Still, not everyone shares the government’s enthusiasm for the latest measures. Dr. Senaratne said that several soft-drink makers had scoffed at the colour-coding system at a recent meeting. One small Europe-based drink maker that recently entered the Sri Lankan market has since said it was considering pulling out of the country. “Some soft-drink manufacturers were against this move,” said the minister. “I told them that they had to abide by the gazette notification.” The changes may have come too late for diabetes patients like Ravi Fernando. But he hopes that with traffic-light labelling, other kids will be able to make smarter decisions, especially if they have sporty ambitions as he once did. “If I’d had a better idea of which drinks were likely to cause the most harm to my health,” he said, “I’d definitely have steered clear of the worst of them.”
