Soda, Sports Drinks May Be Culprit in Childhood Obesity - East Idaho News
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Soda, Sports Drinks May Be Culprit in Childhood Obesity

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98841963?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1375764983419Sarah Kell/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Preschoolers who are allowed to drink sugar-filled beverages instead of milk and other low-calorie drinks have higher odds of obesity, researchers at UVA and Columbia University say.

The researchers studied what 9,600 preschoolers, ages 2 to 5, were drinking over a five-year period. They then surveyed the parents of these kids when they were ages 9 months, 2, 4 and 5 years.

What they found was that kids who regularly drank soda, sports drinks and fruit drinks that were not 100 percent fruit juice were 1.4 times as likely to be obese. The preschoolers who consumed more sugary beverages on a regular basis also had higher body mass indices (BMI) — the measurement used for obesity — and greater increases in weight over time. The researchers also noted that children who drank more sugary beverages also drank less milk and were prone to watching more television.

These kids, they concluded, can benefit from interventions focused on decreasing sugary drink consumption, and this can help to decrease their odds of being obese.

While the researchers can’t say with certainty that sugary beverages are directly causing obesity in children, a link has been shown in previous research. This study’s findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, are helpful particularly because obesity and sugary drink consumption in children ages 2-5 have not been studied exclusively.

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