Sugary Drinks Add to Obesity Epidemic
Connie Bennett
April 2, 2006
Kudos galore to Living on Earth with Steve Curwood -- the weekly environmental news and information program distributed by National Public Radio (NPR) -- for doing a fabulous piece exploring the connection between soft drink consummption and obesity.
To begin, the show quoted the recognized Dr. David Ludwig, who recently published the results of a preliminary study in the journal Pediatrics -- a landmark project that offers a new twist on the soft drink-obesity connection.
Essentially, the study -- as I wrote about previously -- showed how weight loss can be furthered by limiting the amount of soft drinks kids consume by delivering non-caloric drinks to their homes.
Naturally, Living on Earth first asked Dr. Ludwig why researchers are spending so much of their attention to soda when discussing the obesity issue.
"Soft drinks are a particular concern because consumption rates have increased so dramatically in the last three decades," Dr. Ludwig told Living on Earth.
"In the 1950s, children drank three cups of milk for every cup of soft drink. And today that ratio is reversed – three cups of soft drinks for every cup of milk. Observational studies – that is, looking at large groups of people over time and comparing changes in diet with changes in health – have suggested that soft drink consumption promotes obesity in a very dramatic fashion."
Dr. Ludwig then discussed how researchers studied 100 high school children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who were drinking soft drinks at least once a day. One group just kept drinking soft drinks as they usually did and the "intervention group" received home deliveries of non-calorie-containing beverages.
"So, basically, advertising works, that the things that children find convenient and accessible are, in fact, influencing their eating habits," Dr. Ludwig told the reporter.
"But perhaps most dramatically we found that among the overweight children in our study, those receiving this intervention to decrease sugar-sweetened beverages lost an extra pound per month compared to those in the control group.our research, and that of others, suggest that sugar-sweetened beverages are playing a uniquely adverse role in promoting weight gain, especially in children."
Then reporter Rachel Gotbaum visited Brockton High School in Brocton, Massachusetts to talk to its principal Susan Sachowitz and some students.
Next followed a fascinating discussion of the quagmire that schools find themselves in -- that of needing funds and how companies such as Coca-Cola provide money to these cash-strapped areas of learning.
Read the transcript of the well-reported Living on Earth piece.
If you're a parent, you'd do well to stock your fridge with water and other non-caloric drinks and leave soft drinks on the supermarket shelves. After all, you just never know how much soda your kids are drinking while they're at school.
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