Rethink your Drink

A 2004 study found that soft drinks are the single largest contributor of calorie intake in the United States, which means that if you are like most Americans, you drink sugar-sweetened soft drinks pretty regularly. The bad news? If you’re trying to improve your health or lose weight, sugar-sweetened beverages could be thwarting your efforts.

A review of research on consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (such as full calorie soda, bottled iced teas and sports drinks) concluded that greater consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with increased calorie intake, weight gain, diabetes, and obesity. For children in particular, each extra can or glass of sugar-sweetened beverage consumed per day increases their chance of becoming obese by 60%. And for adults, the news isn’t much better. Consuming just one sugar-sweetened beverage per day (about 100-200 extra calories) can add up to 25 pounds of weight gain in a year!

The easiest way to prevent this type of weight gain is to reduce the number of high calorie, low nutrient drinks (such as full-calorie soda and sports drinks) you drink each day. Many low-calorie, low-sugar substitutes exist, such as: flavored seltzer, plain seltzer with a splash of juice, green iced tea, or water mixed with mint or lemon. Need more motivation? Check out this great poster from the Alliance for a Healthier Vermont, which illustrates just how much sugar is in many popular drinks.

For more information about the policy and program efforts to reduce sugary drink consumption in the United States, follow @neahin on twitter as NEA HIN staffer Annelise Cohon tweets from the Sugary Drinks Summit in Washington, DC on June 7, 2012. The 2012 Sugary Drinks Summit is a national advocacy conference to motivate and strengthen national, state, and local initiatives to reduce sugary-drink consumption in the United States. During the event, people from a variety of organizations and geographical regions will gather to strategize to improve health by reversing the dramatic increase in sugary-drink consumption over the past decades. For more information about the Summit, visit: http://www.fewersugarydrinks.org/elements/pdf/summit_registration.pdf