The Student Room Group

Government plans to reduce the size of sweet/chocolate bars

The government are planning to reduce sweet or chocolate bars in the terms of size by 20% in a bid to tackle child obesity. Personally I feel this will not change anything if they do try and reduce the size, thoughts?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mars-bars-kit-kats-dairy-9760867?service=responsive&ICID=FB_mirror_main

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Good, I'll eat less then :smile:
eh not a fan of chocolate anyway
It will probably have some effect, but if people want to eat a lot of chocolate, then they'll just buy however many bars they want.
Original post by Rock Fan
The government are planning to reduce sweet or chocolate bars in the terms of size by 20% in a bid to tackle child obesity. Personally I feel this will not change anything if they do try and reduce the size, thoughts?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mars-bars-kit-kats-dairy-9760867?service=responsive&ICID=FB_mirror_main

If they keep the price the same then it might have an impact
Or parents could just take responsibility and not overfeed their corpulent children.
Original post by Rock Fan
The government are planning to reduce sweet or chocolate bars in the terms of size by 20% in a bid to tackle child obesity. Personally I feel this will not change anything if they do try and reduce the size, thoughts?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mars-bars-kit-kats-dairy-9760867?service=responsive&ICID=FB_mirror_main


Why not?
if you're going down the government meddling road I think the first thing to look at is the pricing of the duo packs

e.g. single snickers 60p
duo snickers 80p

people aren't going to open the wrapper, eat one and take the other home for later - it's a snack product to eat on the go and the duo pricing encourages people to pork down two bars AND feel good about it because they got the second bar for 20p
I thought Conservatism was more about taking responsibility for oneself [and hence, one's children]? How far you have fallen. :sigh:
Original post by Sabertooth
I thought Conservatism was more about taking responsibility for oneself [and hence, one's children]? How far you have fallen. :sigh:


But obesity indirectly affects the rest of us.
It will have very little effect. Chocolate bars are shrinking anyway. The standard size has fallen from 60 to 50g and the multi pack size is 40g.
People buy multipacks. People will have 2 instead of one.

If the standard bar reduces by 20% the manufacturers will take that as profit as well.
(edited 7 years ago)
It won't help with obesity. If they really want to help the obese, they'd enforce cooking classes in all schools, PE would be increased to an hour a day rather than an hour a week and they'd work with trading standards to keep terrible, addictive ingredients out of food.
Reply 12
They'll still sell them in packs of 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 so what's the difference. At the end of the day it is all down to self control.
Original post by 999tigger
It will have very little effect. Chocolate bars are shrinking anyway. The standard size has fallen from 60 to 50g and the multi pack size is 40g.
People buy multipacks. People will have 2 instead of one.

If the standard bar reduces by 20% the manufacturers will take that as profit as well.


I doubt people will buy two. If the size reduced by 50% then people can of course cheat the system and buy double.

With a 20% decrease people will be reluctant to spend more money on a whole new bar.
Original post by Cherub012
I doubt people will buy two. If the size reduced by 50% then people can of course cheat the system and buy double.

With a 20% decrease people will be reluctant to spend more money on a whole new bar.


Not really people buy multipacks these days. A single mars bar can be 60/80p etc.
£land is 3 or 4 for £1.
Original post by 999tigger
Not really people buy multipacks these days. A single mars bar can be 60/80p etc.
£land is 3 or 4 for £1.


But the sizes of those will be reduced too?
Original post by Cherub012
But the sizes of those will be reduced too?


Think you will find its just the standard size, but even if they reduce multipack size down to treat size, then the cheap price and ready availability would mean you could just have two if you were so minded. Reducing sugar content is a smarter move.
Original post by 999tigger
Think you will find its just the standard size, but even if they reduce multipack size down to treat size, then the cheap price and ready availability would mean you could just have two if you were so minded. Reducing sugar content is a smarter move.


You would get uneven bars. :lol:

I don't think people can really tell the size change.

This is pure speculation but I always find that half the snack is you just enjoying it and the other half is just you wanting to finish it. You never know, people may be almost as satisfied with the new sizes.

And the context is children here. They usually only have a pound on them anyways coming from school. Neither would they think about getting their money's worth.

Reducing sugar content would be much harder to implement. (Quality vs Quantity)
Original post by Cherub012
But obesity indirectly affects the rest of us.


Using that argument, everything indirectly affects everyone.
Original post by Cherub012
You would get uneven bars. :lol:

I don't think people can really tell the size change.

This is pure speculation but I always find that half the snack is you just enjoying it and the other half is just you wanting to finish it. You never know, people may be almost as satisfied with the new sizes.

And the context is children here. They usually only have a pound on them anyways coming from school. Neither would they think about getting their money's worth.

Reducing sugar content would be much harder to implement. (Quality vs Quantity)


How much chocolate do you actually buy?
People feel ripped off when the size of their product shrinks and they get charged the same amount. Almost as satisfied thats ridiculous. Ive seen threads on here moaning about shrinking sizes.

The context here is children? They dont think about getting value for money? REALLY? Parents buy most of the chocolate in supermarkets. The cheapest ive seen them this week is 9 mars bars or snickers for £1.49. All the others are available 9 snack size for £2. If they only have £1 they can buy 3 or 4 for £land. Why would you spend 80p on one?

Aldi I can get a multipack mars bar , which is 36g a nice small treat size, until you realise a multipack of 6 is 59p.

People know about sizes. At the end of last year they reduced the size of the £land bestseller by 20g which changed the shape of the Toblerone to have less triangles. It made the news.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703

Same goes for bags of crisps, which have shrunk from 40/ 35g down to 25g, but you can now get 6/7 bags for £1. parents buy the multipacks. They also sell the 150g, 200g and 500g bags. It will have marginal effect.

Education and parental control will be better.
(edited 7 years ago)

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