LONDON - Seventeen
companies, including Tesco, Mars and Coca-Cola, have agreed to slash calories
as part of an initiative to reduce obesity in the United Kingdom, Sky News reports. The firms signed the
Responsibility Deal, a government program designed to lower obesity rates in
Britain.
Coca-Cola Great Britain
has promised to slash calories by 30% in some of its sodas by 2014. Mars will
lower the number of calories in its chocolate bars from 260 to 250 by 2013.
Tesco will increase its offerings of low-calorie meals and reduce calories by
1.8 billion in its sodas.
Despite the promises, some
health care experts are not pleased with the results. "This translates to, for
every individual, cutting down on 16 dry roasted peanuts per day. So the public
can think for themselves, do they really think this is going to impact on a
massive public health disaster? It's the food and drink industry paying lip
service to the government, said Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist.
"I think the impact of
this will be absolutely negligible. What needs to be introduced is legislation.
I think legislation that has an impact. The Prime Minister has an open goal to
show he is a man of substance who cares more about our children's health than
the profits of food manufacturers," said Malhotra.
But Dr. Susan Jebb, who
chairs the Responsibility Deal Food Network, countered that this program and
the commitments from food and beverage companies to lower calorie counts in
their products is an "important element of an overall strategy to tackle
obesity. We've got really solid commitments today, we have got to give time to
see if those really pan out. We need more companies to come on board too. There
may be a place for regulation but it would be in parallel with, attacking other
elements of the problem. I think voluntary agreements have to be given an
opportunity to work."
In the United States,
beverage companies have recently launched or expanded lines of low-calories
products, such as Dr Pepper
Ten, Pepsi
Next and Miller64.