For every soft
drink or sugar-sweetened beverage a child drinks every day,
their obesity risk appears to jump 60%.
About
65% of adolescent girls and 74% of adolescent boys consume
soft drinks daily.
Currently,
soft drinks constitute the leading source of added sugars
in the diet, amounting to 36.2 grams daily for adolescent
girls and 57.7 grams for boys.
The study included
over 500 schoolchildren of various ethnic backgrounds who
were aged 11 and 12. The investigators found that for every
can or glass of sugar-sweetened beverage a child
drank during the 19-month study, a child's body mass index -- a
measure of weight related to height -- and their chance of becoming
obese increased 60%.
This is the first
long-term study that links soft drink consumption to obesity
in children. The study received no financial support from
any organization that either promotes or opposes soft drink
consumption.
Obesity among US
children has increased significantly since 1960 -- by 54% in
children aged 6 to 11 and by 40% for adolescents, according
to a report on the topic that came out late last year.
The consumption
of soft drinks has increased 500% in
the last 50 years, according to the US Department
of Agriculture.
The
Lancet 2001;357:505-508