I’VE got two children; boys, six and four. I am concerned they will get fat. Actually, not fat. Obese.

So I should be.

An article a year ago that suggested “about one quarter of Canberra children aged five to 17 years were overweight or obese” and said Canberra was experiencing a “growing childhood obesity crisis” with 19.4 per cent of Canberra’s kids in that age group overweight, compared to the Australian average of 17.4 per cent.

The Canberran obesity epidemic is a public-health crisis of proportions as large as those who are its most obvious victims. I don’t know the figures around the extra burden obese people place on the health system, but I bet it is BIG.

However, obesity is not a disease. It’s a symptom – of our food intake. We are what we eat. And what we eat these days is sugar.

I have type1 diabetes so I am hyper-aware of the amount of refined sugar in the products on the supermarket shelves. The stuff is everywhere. In almost everything.

Soft-drink consumption in Australia has risen from 65 litres per person in the 1970s to 100 litres today. Australian kids get almost 30 per cent of their sugar from soft-drink cans, of which they suck back about 1.2 cans a day.

It is ridiculous, frustrating and frightening. Because despite my best attempts to win “Gowrie Father of the Year” by turning the boys on to veggies and quinoa, they know what they like and what they like is sugared.

What to do? If I was King of Canberra, I’d tax the amount of refined sugar in food and drink. Or the amount of sugar added to a product. I’d use the profits to subsidise apples and bananas – make them all 10c, while a Mars Bar was $4. Or something.

I realise I need to do a bit of work on this and may have to change the Constitution to allow the ACT to introduce a tax, but still, it has to happen. Mexico introduced a sugar tax in 2014 while taking over from the US as the world’s fattest country.

Research published in the “British Medical Journal” discovered that the 10 per cent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages cut sales by 12 per cent, or 4.2 fewer litres, in its first year and there was a four per cent rise in sales of untaxed drinks such as bottled plain water.

We are what we eat. So let’s address the cause and the symptoms. Let’s tax sugar, eat better, save ourselves a fortune in public health funding and make ourselves a fortune – in tax revenue and quality of life – simultaneously.

Now, can someone hand me that Constitution? I have a referendum to write.

Taimus Werner-Gibbings is a Labor Party candidate for Brindabella in the ACT election. His website is taimus.org.

Grumpy is an occasional column dedicated purely to things that get up your nose. Readers are invited to vent at editor@citynews.com.au