Celebrity British chef Jamie Oliver is very vocal about his support for sugar tax and against childhood obesity, but he insists that he buys his children a weekly bag of sweets because he doesn't want to be a "sugar Nazi."
In an interview with the Sunday Times food magazine, Oliver said he gives each of his four kids 50p on sweets during weekends.
"The kids get a little bag - you don't get many sweets for 50p," Jamie said. "They're full of sugar, no nutritional value at all. Technically, I'm not allowed to give them sweets until after lunch, but sometimes one slips in."
He added that doing what's right most of the time is what matters.
He added that while sugar brings joy, "it's when sugar starts infiltrating everything else, when it becomes normalised, that it's a problem."
Despite the weekly sweets, Jamie Oliver said his house doesn't have "sweet, sugary drinks" and he is encouraging parents to add fruit to water as an alternative to the sugary drinks.
The celebrity chef has previously "declared war" against sugar in his one-hour Channel 4 documentary, "Jamie's Sugar Rush." He is campaigning for schools to have improved meals. In his show, the 40-year-old chef details the ill effects of a high-sugar diet. The show also reportedly proves that sugar tax will be able to help reduce diabetes significantly, as seen in Mexico's soda tax.
Last month, the healthy-food campaigner told Prime Minister David Cameron to be "bold and brave" after Cameron vetoed introducing a levy. Oliver told the Government's court that the decision lies in their hands following a Public Health England (PHE) report showing that up to 20% of sugar consumption would be cut with a sugar tax.
The PHE study was praised by Jamie, and he urged people in the government to tackle the obesity crisis "like parents not politicians".
The PHE report, originally shelved by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, says that it appears logical that a "sugar tax" of 10% to 20% would result in reduced consumption of sugar. However, the reort also stressed that evidence on the matter is limited.
