Orange Regional Medical Center

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Soft drinks and sugar containing beverages are low hanging fruit…

“Soft drinks and sugar-containing beverages are the low hanging fruit in public health today,” says Dr. David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, at Children’s Hospital in Boston. “Many children are consuming 300 calories per day or more, just in sugar-containing beverages. Compare the challenge of giving up three glasses of sugary beverages, versus getting them to do two hours of moderate physical activity.”

“If you switch from Coke to water, that’s easy,” says Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, a professor at the University of North Carolina and a recent president of the American Diabetes Association. “You don’t have to make big complicated changes in how you cook, and shop, and all that. And the number of calories you can save, can be substantial.”

Some in the soft drink business say their product has been unfairly singled out. “Consumption of added sugars is going down,” says Karen Hanretty, Vice-President of Public Affairs for the American Beverage Association. “Soda consumption has declined, even as obesity has increased. To say that sugar is solely responsible for obesity, doesn’t make sense.”

Buried in the flood of horror stories about America’s obesity crisis, are a few hopeful signs. Not only is sugar consumption going down, but obesity rates among girls and women have actually stayed flat since 1999, according to Cynthia Ogden, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For boys and men, those levels have increased only modestly since around 2006, Ogden says.

Coincidentally or not, the leveling off of obesity coincides with a drop in the amount of soda that Americans consume. Consumption of soda — both regular and diet — has fallen by 17.3% since 1998, according to Beverage Digest.

Sounds like we’re going in the right direction!

Healthy Regards,

Janet