Research associate and PhD candidate Alexandra Jones
As a federal election looms, now is the time for coordinated, strategic and innovative action to improve Australia's health according to the authors of a Perspective article published in the Medical Journal of Australia today. "It is time the price of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) at the register more accurately reflected the true cost of their consumption on Australia's health and economy," write the authors Ms Alexandra Jones from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre and the George Institute for Global Health, and Dr Alessandro Demaio from the University of Melbourne. The cost to Australia's health. "Australians are now much more likely to be obese than their parents were at the same age. At age two - five years, 8.8 percent of children in 2014-2015 were obese, compared with 4.2 percent two decades earlier. More obesity-related chronic conditions at younger ages will likely bring cascading increases in health care costs." "Beyond waistlines, the impact of SSBs remains most visible in their contribution to oral disease and tooth decay. In 2010, 55 percent of six-year-olds had experienced decay in their deciduous teeth and 48 percent of 12-year-olds in their permanent teeth," write Jones and Demaio.
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