New York City government face a criticism of becoming a nanny state, city health officials banned the sale of supersize sugar-laden drinks. They are trying to come up with a solution for the problem of obesity that affected two-third of American adults and one third of children in the U.S.A. Scientists have handed the ban for strong evidence that replacing sugared drinks with sugar-free or water can slow weight gain in children.
Beverage industry officials denounced the research that might end up with applying more taxes or other restrictions.
Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital assigned 224 over weight teenagers to receive water and diet drinks for one year. The result was that they gained only 3.5 pounds, while a comparison group of similar teenagers gained 7.7 pounds in one year.
Other researchers at Vu University Amsterdam randomly assigned 641 normal weight children to drink 104-calorie sugar-sweetened or sugar-free drink for 18 months. The result was 13.9 pounds gained to 16.2 pounds gained for those drinking the sugar-added version. Both studies suggest that soda is a pretty good place to start.
Officials with the American Beverage Association criticized the studies, saying that obesity is not caused by a single food or beverage.
A similar experiment of sugar-free drink is applied on Hispanic -who have high rate of diabetes- children by Dr Ludwig end up with 1 pound weight gain to 20 pounds in average.
Dr Katan warned that studies need to examine consumer reaction to policies restricting sweetened drinks. Taxing soft drinks could result in buying fewer fruits to afford soft drinks.
Both clinical trials have limitations, they demonstrate the effect of a single behavioral change on weight gain, said Dr Seema Kumar, a pediatric endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic Children Center. In fact there are multiple aspects such as portion sizes, frequency of snacks and types of snacks, she said. So, curbing soda consumption “is not a magic pill”.
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