Our pre-packaged, over-processed and sugary foods are seeing a big rise in so many diseases that are known killers.

Now, I am no health expert nor do I have any qualifications in the fields of diet or nutrition, however I am a mum and that qualifies me to at least have a say.

As a kid, my mother who was a nurse, never allowed us to have sugary fizzy drinks.  Part of that may have been because it was not affordable, but primarily it was because she limited the amount of sugar we were allowed to have.

I don’t remember ever thinking much about it as a kid.  I did what I was told and never really felt I was missing out on anything.

Now I am not quite as strict as my mum was, but I guess I am following her lead.  We never have fizzy drinks in our house.  It’s just not something I would think to put in my shopping trolley. However if we go out for dinner, a glass of lemonade is always the first thing ordered. It’s a treat and my boys love it.

There has recently been talk of a higher tax to be placed on alcohol in Australia. The primary reason behind this move is to help in the fight against obesity.

And this is where I get a little confused.  Here we have an epidemic of really young children eating high-sugar food and exceptionally high-sugar drinks.

Children as young as two wandering around town holding a can of coke or sucking lollipops before they even have a full mouth of teeth is not an unusual sight.

Our kids are getting fatter and we now see programs in schools designed specially to get the young ones moving.

The problem is I can’t remember the last time I saw a toddler walking around with a beer or a wine cask. 

By the time children are of the legal drinking age, if they have grown up eating and drinking rubbish, they already have an obesity problem and no tax is going to help them.

Yet again, our society is trying to put a ‘band aid’ on an issue rather than going back to the cause of the problem. Why tax adults who have spent their lives eating and drinking rubbish who already have addictions, weight issues and clogged arteries?

How about we look at some of the products accessible to children? 

Why not make seasonal vegetables and fruit, and meat the cheapest produce in the supermarket, and the foods known to be unhealthy more expensive?

I have tried to raise my kids that everything is fine in moderation. But it’s not rocket science to get children into good eating habits when they are young, rather than spend billions on health care for Australians once the damage is done.