Soft drink and children obesity

Several studies from UK and elsewhere relate soft drink consumption with obesity and reduce consumption with improved weight status.

Most commercial soft drinks contain large amounts of sugar and thus energy. They have few other nutrients and little satiety effect. Consumption of sugar-containing beverages could lead to an energy imbalance and to overweight in the long term is an associate increase in total dietary energy intake.

In a study on children and adolescents, each additional serving ( 240 mL) of sugar-sweetened beverage was associated by a daily increase in total energy intake of 106 kcal (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2009;163:336-43).

Even of the drinks are ‘low energy’, they are very sweet possibly encouraging ‘a sweet tooth’ and a desire for more drinks of this kind.

Data from the USDA Continuing Surveys of Food Intakes by Individuals from 1977 and 1995 indicated the proportion of adolescent boys and girls consuming soft drinks, the biggest source of refined sugar in the diet, increased by 74% and 65% respectively (Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1999, 99:p.436-442).

Energy intake and soft drink consumption were primitively related among children and adolescent and there was a positive relationship has been observed between adolescent soft drink consumption and weight gain over a two year period (Ludwig, Peterson. Lancet, 2001.357:p505-508).

WHO has recommended that adults and children limit their consumption of free sugars, particularly sugar sweetened soft drinks to less than 10% of total energy in order to prevent obesity (WHO 2003). WHO postulated a high consumption of soft drinks as a ‘probable’ factor that promotes obesity.
Soft drink and children obesity

Soft drinks and health of children

Half of the American children, aged 6 to 11, drink approximately 15 ounces of soda per day. Among adolescent boys who drink soda, the average daily intake is approximately 28.5 ounces, and among girls, the average soda drinks consumes around 21 ounces per day.

For Children, increases in soft drink consumption can have serious health implications.

The consumption of soft drinks is associated with obesity in children. It's important because the numbers of fat children are increasing significantly each year.

When they controlled for television viewing (a well-known factor in childhood obesity), physical activity and other dietary factors, soft drinks by themselves added extra risk for obesity.

The prevalence of overweight and its attendant health problems is clearly on the rise among American children.

Currently, 22 percent of children age 2 to 5 years and 15 percent of children aged 6 or older are overweight.

These values are more than double the rates of overweight in the early 1970s.

For every additional glass of sugar-sweetened drink per day, the risk of obesity rose by 60 per cent.

Changing the children over to diet drinks reduced the chances of obesity by over a half.

With the booming epidemic in adult diabetes, tied back to childhood obesity, we need to do what we can to keep our kids' weight down without scaring them into anorexia.

Children obesity to which soft drinks are known to contribute, has been shown to lead to adult obesity, which it self is associated with many health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Most experts say the best techniques are to increase exercise, reduce television viewing and probably reduce time at computers - and now perhaps replacing sugar-loaded drinks with diet products.
Soft drinks and health of children

Bone Fracture and Softdrinks

Bone Fracture and Softdrinks
Phosphate additives are used as flavor stabilizer in all popular cola beverage sold in the United States. Non cola carbonated beverage use citric acid rather that phosphates for this purpose. Several investigators have suggested that consumption of cola beverages and the associated decline in milk consumption may decrease bone density, particularly in children and young women.

In one study in 2000 from shows that the active teenage girls who drink cola beverages had a fracture risk 4.94 times higher than girls who denied drinking cola beverages, even if those other girls drank non-cola carbonated beverages. This finding appeared to confirm and extend previous findings indicating that consumption of cola beverages predicted high fracture risk in teenage girls. However all the studies relied on questionnaires and self-report: none included any dependent measure of cola beverage consumption or bone density, nor was any attempt made to confirm that girls who believed that they had sustained a broken bone had actually done so.

Researchers have suggested that the increased risk of fracture associated with consumption of cola beverages is not a result of anything in the beverage itself, but is rather due to the displacement of other foods and beverages such as milk.
Bone Fracture and Softdrinks