Children in U.S. don't drink enough water, opt for sugary juice instead

Authored by upi.com and submitted by mvea

Researchers say that limiting the amount of juice children drink -- and emphasizing water instead -- can help prevent risk for obesity. Photo by silviarita /Pixabay

On any given day, 1 in 5 American youngsters don't drink any water at all, a new survey shows.

And those who don't end up consuming almost twice as many calories from sugar-sweetened beverages.

That, investigators warn, translates into an extra 100 calories per day, which over time can raise the risk for becoming overweight or obese.

"Drinking water is the healthiest beverage to drink," said study author Asher Rosinger, director of the Water, Health and Nutrition Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. "Water is an essential nutrient that is critical to proper physiological and cognitive functioning."

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By contrast, sugary drinks "are problematic because they have been linked to many negative health conditions, such as weight gain, dental caries [cavities], and type 2 diabetes," said Rosinger. He noted that current guidelines recommend limiting daily intake of added sugars to less than 10 percent of all calories consumed.

"Kids should drink water every day, and it should be the first option [parents] go to when their kids are thirsty," Rosinger said.

In the study, data was collected from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys between 2011 and 2012 and between 2015 and 2016.

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About 8,400 children (aged 2 to 19) reported whether they drank water each day (although amounts were not quantified), and how much of sugar-sweetened beverages they routinely consumed.

The latter included all non-diet sodas, sweetened fruit juices, sports drinks, energy drinks, and/or presweetened tea and coffee drinks. (Zero-calorie diet sodas and drinks, 100 percent fruit juices, and/or unsweetened coffee and teas were excluded.)

Among the 1 in 5 who didn't drink any water daily, sugared-drink calories totaled 200, on average, compared with 100 calories a day among water drinkers.

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Sugared-drink habits varied somewhat by race, however. For example, white non-water drinkers were found to consume more additional calories from sugared drinks than Hispanic non-water drinkers (123 extra calories per day versus 61 extra calories per day).

Regardless, are such relatively low amounts of excess calories really a big deal? Yes, say investigators, who point out that taking in an extra 3,500 calories means packing on an extra pound. That breaks down to just a little more than a month of 100 extra calories per day.

Rosinger did note that sugary drink consumption among American children has dropped over the last 15 years. But he added that "there are still pockets and sub-populations that have high consumption levels. [So] it's critical to identify which kids are particularly at risk for high sugar-sweetened beverage intake, since this can lead to these negative health effects."

On that front, Rosinger noted that water insecurity due to contamination "is a growing problem in the U.S., so we need to keep that in mind as important context, especially when it comes to parents who may be giving their kids soda or juice because they distrust the water. Therefore, it's critical to ensure that everyone has access to safe, clean water."

The findings were published April 22 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Lona Sandon is program director in the department of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She said the findings "confirm what I have seen in practice: If someone is not drinking water, they are drinking something else, likely soft drinks or other sugary drinks." She was not involved with the study.

Sandon's advice to parents? "Provide water and low-fat plain milk at the table. Keep flavored milk only for special occasions. Avoid purchasing soft drinks or other fruit juice-type drinks that are laden with added sugar. Try no-calorie, flavored seltzer water instead. Make a no-soft drink or other sugary drinks rule in the household. Save them for special occasions. Keep 100 percent fruit juice to 1 cup per day. Keep sports drinks for sports, not with meals, and only if the child will be exercising for more than an hour."

And dump the energy drinks, Sandon concluded. "Kids do not need them."

The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion offers more on healthy diet guidelines.

Copyright © 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

respectfulslurp on April 23rd, 2019 at 15:55 UTC »

I never knew drinking water was a thing growing up, because my mom lived off soda and so did we by proxy. Between that, our junk food diet, and poor oral hygiene (because again, I had no idea) my teeth were ruined before I was even a teenager.

Once I learned how important water is from health class in high school, my mom would get annoyed and insecure and snap that "there's water in soda". She couldn't handle us doing anything different from her, even if it cost us our health.

Dont have kids if your ego is too big to raise them properly.

Edit: I should also add that I would get severely dehydrated with kidney pain and hallucinations, and it was always just written off as attention-seeking. Instead of changing anything, I was put on anti-psychotic medication, which only exacerbated my issues for many years.

deercreekth on April 23rd, 2019 at 13:51 UTC »

I had been drinking mostly soda for so long that I couldn't imagine not drinking it. I started trying to replace a soda with water at least once a day. I couldn't go more than a day without getting a headache if I didn't drink any soda at all. I finally got down to just having one at lunch. I had one for lunch on a Wednesday. That Friday I realized I hadn't had a soda since Wednesday and felt fine. I wanted to see how long I could go. That was seven months ago. I haven't had a drop of soda. I mostly drink water now.

TittyMongoose42 on April 23rd, 2019 at 13:06 UTC »

On a very basic level, this makes perfect sense, and I don't want to seem like I'm some conspiracy theorist slamming Big Sugar or Big Soda or Big Corn or what have you, but it all comes down to what companies are incentivized to advertise. In doing a little extra reading on the topic, I came across this article, and though it's a little dated (most of the cited data is now about 10 years old), it's no less prescient since it describes how we got here, from a marketing standpoint.

In an FTC study from 2006, it was found that:

Carbonated beverages was the highest category in terms of marketing expenditure directed at children (ages 2-11) and adolescents (ages 12-17) ($492 million, compared to $294 million for restaurant foods, the next highest category);

Of the $492 million, 96% was directed at marketing to adolescents;

Carbonated beverage companies spent $21 million on advertising using Web sites, Internet, digital ads, word of-mouth, and viral marketing. Carbonated beverage companies spent more on “new media” than did any other food or beverage category.

The 44 companies spent $91 million on in-store marketing and packaging of carbonated beverages, almost all of it directed toward teenagers

They spent $117 million marketing carbonated beverages using traditional promotional activities such as product placement ads appearing before or within a video game; ads preceding a home video or theatrical movie feature, including license fees paid to use a third-party animated character in advertising or for cross-promotional arrangements; sponsorships of sports teams and athletes; fees paid for celebrity endorsements; or product branding in conjunction with philanthropic endeavors.

Add to that the burgeoning notion of "healthy" soda alternatives manufactured by the same soda companies, e.g. "fortified" waters containing vitamins and minerals, when there is no evidence of these deficiencies among Americans. One example: CocaCola’s Diet Coke Plus contains vitamins B4, B6, and B12, along with zinc and magnesium. Only people who are sick and really poor (and sometimes iron-deficient, pregnant women) need supplements. This is misleading marketing and is deluding the public into thinking these things are healthier.