**When Chancellor George Osborne unveiled his new Budget last week, a shock sugar tax on sweetened sugar-ladened drinks dominated the headlines. **
It's estimated the tax may add 18p to 24p on the price of a litre of fizzy drink, and the cost of a can of Coca-Cola may go up by 8p.
Soft drinks such as Coca-Cola, Fanta, Irn-Bru, Ribena and Lucozade will be hit by this levy if they refuse to change their recipes and reduce the sugar in their products within the next two years.
This tax is expected to raise £520million in its first year, which the Government has pledged to use for sport funding in every primary school.
The move comes as the UK faces a huge obesity crisis, costing the NHS £5 billion a year, and with childhood obesity on the rise.
In the last two years 1,300 children were admitted to hospital with weight-related conditions and a staggering 19 per cent of boys and 16 per cent of girls aged between two and 15 are now classed as obese.
Mum-of-two Christina Palmer, 43, is all too aware how difficult it can be to tackle childhood obesity.
Until just three months ago her eldest son Harry, 14, was 17st and He has recently lost 1st 1lb on a no-carb diet, but is still a size XL.
Fizzy drinks were a huge problem for Harry - hence why she’s backing the sugar tax.
Size 8 Christina says: “Harry would drink over a litre of coke a day, it was a real factor in his weight gain. Fizzy drinks are so cheap and it’s tempting for children.
"I think it’s great the government will be raising the prices as it will make people think twice about buying them.
“Harry loves his food and I’ve always struggled to keep his weight under control. Until recently he refused to accept it was a problem.
"Thankfully now he’s losing weight because he’s realized the long-term consequences of eating badly. But I sympathise with how tough it is for parents whose children are overweight.”
Read the rest of this story in Closer mag, out today.
Also read...
WATCH: 10-year-old girls SLAM BBC's Andrew Neil over the sugar tax