WELL - Summer 2000 - Liquid Candy

Summer 2000

Volume II, Issue II

Liquid Candy

by Guy LeMasurier, MSc

The slogan "Image is nothing, obey your thirst" became a reality for me outside a convenience store where I noticed a large child toting a barrel of pop. The drink was 1.9L of sugary, colored and carbonated bliss for this youngster who wasn't considering his health, never mind his image. In my best estimation, the child was about to add 800 liquid calories to his diet, enough fuel to run, jump and play for over 4 hours. Unfortunately for him, he was able to get the drink into the family van.

If we think this kind of cola consumption is atypical of children in North America, consider this:

In 1997, Americans spent over 54 billion dollars on soft drinks.
The industry produced 14 billion gallons (66 billion litres), equivalent to 1.6 cans of pop per day for every man, woman and child in the US.
As teens have doubled or tripled their soft drink consumption, they have drunk 40% less milk. Twenty years ago, boys consumed as much milk as soft drinks, and girls consumed 50% more milk than soft drinks. Now, boys and girls consume twice as much soda pop as milk.

That's not you talking, Justin, that's the sugar talking.

"That's not you talking, Justin, that's the sugar talking."

This enormous thirst for liquid candy poses several health concerns for our youngsters. Here is some information that is not so easy to swallow:

Teenage girls consume only 60% of the recommended amount of calcium, with soda pop drinkers consuming almost one–fifth less calcium than non–drinkers. It is crucial for females in their teens and twenties to build up bone mass to reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life. Preliminary research suggests that drinking soda pop instead of milk can contribute to broken bones in children and adolescents.
The USDA recommends that we limit our added sugar intake to about 12 teaspoons a day. Soda pop provides the average 12–19 year old with 15 teaspoons of sugar a day.
Obesity rates have risen in tandem with the consumption of soft drinks. Soft drinks provide 10.3% of the calories consumed by overweight teenage boys, but only 7.6% of the calories consumed by other boys.
Among frequent consumers, regular soft drinks promote tooth decay because they bathe the teeth with sugar water for long periods of time.

And while our dental insurance may cover problems associated with tooth decay, teenage girls can't count on insurance when it comes to their bone density. Your risk of osteoporosis later in life depends in part on how much bone mass you build early in life. And girls build 92% of their bone mass by age 18. Going by the numbers, our teenagers are all drinking more pop than milk, and it's not just milk that sugar replaces.

One of the main concerns parents should address is the extra calories that colas add to the diet. The child with the monster drink described at the beginning of the article is getting more than one third of his recommended daily allowance of calories in a single drink. Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health noted, "If people get a big chunk of their calories from added sugar, they're not getting other good things like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fibre, vitamins and minerals." Alice Lichtenstein of the USDA's Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging added, "Foods that tend to be high in added sugar tend not to be high in other nutrients." (Added sugar doesn't include the naturally occurring sugars in fruits and milk.)

The calories in pop and other fruit drinks come from added sugars, typically glucose and fructose, and beverages that list these ingredients in the top 5 should be avoided. Here are a few examples of high calorie, sugar drinks that try to pass as a healthy alternative from pop. All they lack is the bubbles:

Drink	Percent (%) Juice	Calories	Vitamin C (%RDA)
Snapple (kiwi–strawberry/mango madness)	5	110	minimal
Everfresh (Apple Raspberry Cocktail or Fruit Punch)	25	120	minimal
Fruitopia Beverage	11	120	minimal

As summer approaches and the need to quench our thirst increases, caffeinated colas pose another problem. Caffeine stimulates the kidney to excrete water from the body leaving us more dehydrated. Alcohol has the same effect. I have always advised the NHL hockey players that I have worked with to consume 2 cups of water for every beer. You may want to apply the same rule with kids. One water before the pop and one after (to wash away the sugar from the teeth).

So, be careful how you hydrate your child. Encourage them to drink plenty of fluids, especially with meals. Limit your drink choices to healthy natural fruit juices when you can. We are all familiar with the saying "everything in moderation", and this advice is well warranted when we are talking about our pups and pop. For more information, visit www.cspinet.org/sodapop.

"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away."

Tom Waits

Contact Information

Phone: (250) 721-6997
Fax: (250) 721-6929
Email: mcollis@speakwell.com

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