Fizzy drinks make children fat

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 23 Apr 2004 - 0:00 PST

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According to researchers in the UK, if you cut down on fizzy drinks (sodas) you automatically start limiting obesity rates, especially in children, children do not get so fat. The researchers are from the Bournemouth Diabetes and Endocrine Centre, UK.

Dr. Kerr, team leader, and his team wondered what the effect on obesity would be if they just targeted fizzy drinks rather than food, drink and physical activity.

Sugar is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, fizzy drinks are loaded with sugar. If a child has too much sugar in his/her system it is turned into fat.

Dr. Kerr said "We thought if we could persuade children to reduce their consumption of fizzy drinks it would go some way to prevent them becoming overweight or obese."

The team looked at 650 kids 7-11 years old. Half of them had their fizzy drink consumption cut by 50%, which meant they could only drink about 250 millilitres per day. The rest of them drank 0.2 glasses more per day plus about two glasses every three days.

A year later they weighed the kids. The group that cut their fizzy drinks down had lost weight, the percentage of overweight or obese kids in that group fell by 0.2%. In the other group, however, obesity and overweight rates went up by 7.6%.

Dr. Kerr said "This was is a cheap intervention, thoroughly enjoyed by the children. We think it should be rolled out. It doesn't take a major starvation diet to prevent people getting overweight or obese. This has huge implications for public health."

The children were told that rather than having fizzy drinks (sodas) they would be better off having very diluted fruit drinks or simply water.

The WHO says that over 17 million kids under the age of five are overweight.

American kids have got fatter at an alarming rate. The number of overweight teenagers in the USA has gone up by 300% since 1980, the number of overweight kids in general has doubled.

It seems that the old expression "he will grow and thin out" is a myth. Kids who are overweight tend to become adults who are overweight. Adults who are overweight have a much higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer.

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