It turns out that changing how much sugar a country has doesn't actually change its obesity rates at all.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
<span>The Sugar Paradox: Food Supply Predicts Obesity Across Sub-Saharan African Countries but Not Within Them, 2010–2022</span>
SSRN · 6463862
The Takeaway
While 'fat' countries generally consume more sugar, a 12-year panel study of 37 nations found that when a specific country's sugar supply rises or falls, its obesity rate doesn't follow. This suggests that the correlations used to justify sugar-sweetened beverage taxes are actually just capturing broad development trends rather than a direct dietary cause-and-effect.
From the abstract
Countries that eat more sugar are fatter. Across 37 Sub-Saharan African countries, national sugar supply predicts women's obesity at r = 0.50 after controlling for income, urbanization, and vegetable oil supply. The association survives every cross-sectional stress test: leave-one-out exclusion, subregion fixed effects, rank correlations. It does not survive following the same countries over time. In a 2010-2022 panel, sugar supply is null within countries under six specifications-fixed effects,