Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the North American diet, accounting for about 7 percent of our daily calories. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, teenagers get 13 percent of their calories from soft drinks. The average American drinks upward of 50 gallons of soft drinks annually!
Apart from their water content, soft drinks are mainly refined sugar. Teens suck down the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of refined sugar daily in sodas. That’s about the top end of the carbohydrate limit that experts recommend for all foods combined in a day!
Soft drinks have been named as one of the leading causes of overweight and obesity—along with Type 2 diabetes and other weight-related illnesses. They contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is toxic to the body, in particular the liver. HFCS also causes profound fat accumulation and weight gain. This inexpensive sweetener is dumped into soft drinks and is added to literally thousands of foods, from cookies and jams to supersized muffins.
It’s not merely the extra calories that make it such a nutritional nightmare. There’s evidence that high-fructose corn syrup acts differently in the body than regular sugar and may increase the risk of serious diseases. HFCS also causes a rise in triglycerides, the blood fats that have been linked to heart disease. Animal studies indicate that a high-fructose diet can trigger insulin resistance and excess levels of insulin. Even without these dangers, the extra calories alone are a good enough reason to avoid it.
In 1970, the average adult ate about half a pound of HFCS a year. Now that’s risen to about 70 pounds! Kids—with smaller bodies and a big thirst for sweets—chug down even more. It’s not only the sugar that makes sodas a problem, but also what they replace in kids’ diets. Children used to drink a lot more milk than soda. In the mid-1990s, the balance turned and children were drinking twice as much soda as milk. At the same time, they began getting lower amounts of vitamins and minerals in their diet.
Want to lose weight without trying? Give up (or cut back) the soft drinks. At 140 calories per 12-ounce serving, you could easily lose half a pound a week (or more) by simply switching to water, ice tea, or carbonated seltzer from the soft drink fountain with just a dash of Sprite, 7-Up, or lemonade added for flavor. Here are some other tips:
■ Read food labels and limit your consumption of any beverages or foods that list HFCS as one of the first three or four ingredients.
■ Since corn syrup is the main ingredient in sodas, cutting back on them will make losing weight much easier. Try to substitute seltzer or sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon every once in a while (or more often, if you can).
■ Go for smaller drink sizes. Those Big Gulp cups are belly-busters—and a sure path to diabetes. If you must have bigger sized drinks, fill a Big Gulp cup halfway with club soda or seltzer from the soda fountain and the other half with your favorite soft drink. You’ll be cutting your calories by 50 percent.
