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Norway’s sugar consumption is rushing downwards

The Local Norway
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Norway’s sugar consumption is rushing downwards
Photo: Hannamariah/Depositphotos"

People in Norway have reduced their sugar consumption so much that the national target for 2021 has already been reached.

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The country’s annual sugar consumption per person been reduced by 19 kilograms over the last eighteen years, NRK reports.

Health authorities in the Scandinavian country have welcomes the historically low levels of Norwegian sugar consumption.

The Norwegian Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet) presented on Tuesday an overview of dietary trends in the country, providing a barometer of the healthiness of Norwegians’ eating habits.

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“We are not yet down to the recommended intake, but we have actually already reached the target for sugar reduction (by 2021) set out in the Norwegian National Action Plan for a Healthier Diet,” Linda Granlund, division director for public health with the Directorate of Health, said to NRK.

The report presented on Tuesday states that the average yearly consumption of sugar in Norway decreased from 43 to 24 kilos per person between 2000 and 2018.

The last ten years have seen sugar consumption fall by 27 percent, according to NRK’s report.

Health authorities said these are important trends in the context of long-term health in Norway.

The report, Utviklingen av Norsk kosthold 2019 (‘The Development of the Norwegian Diet 2019’), is the Directorate of Health's annual report on diet and food supply in Norway.

Amongst other trends, the report states that chocolate consumption in Norway fell from 14 to 12.4 kilograms per person from 2017 to 2018,.

That compares with sales of chocolate and confectionery having increased from around 5 kilograms to around 12 kilograms per person per year from 1960 to 1990, and a further increase to around 15 kilograms in 2008, according to production, import and export figures from Statistics Norway.

Border shopping is not included in these statistics, the report notes.

Meanwhile, turnover from soft drinks and mineral water sales has more than doubled since the 1950s.

The consumption of sugary sodas appears to have peaked in 1997 at 93 litres per person.

But the total consumption of sugary soft drinks has dropped sharply in the last four years, from 59 to 47 litres per person, according to the report.

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