Sweetened Beverages Are Contributors to Obesity

It estimated that about 1.9 million adults, 18 years and older are overweight and that the worldwide obesity rate has tripled since 1975 to over 650 million. This is according to the report from the WHO World Health Organization. Recent studies on randomized controlled trials published in the Journal Obesity Facts included 30 new studies that were published between the year 2013 and 2015. Similar reports were also published in the journal of the European Association for the Study of Obesity.

What Does Reports Say About Obesity?

These studies showed that consumption of sweetened beverages contributed to overweight and obesity in both children and adults. The numbers of affected individuals have grown significantly in the last three years. These studies compared to the previous ones that included 32 studies across the period of 1990to 2012.

The new study and the evidence suggested that SSB consumption has been positively associated with the high rate of obesity in children. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 340 million children, as well as youngsters of ages 5-19, were either obese or overweight in 2016.

Combining the previously published report with the current report, the researchers came up with a conclusion that the public health policies should aim at reducing the consumption of sweetened beverages. Dr. Farpour-Lambert termed this as something that should be obvious and already known. The public health policies and other stakeholders such as first aid certification schools should encourage the use of other alternatives such as water, which doesn’t pose any risk to our bodies. He also added that there are limited or no efforts to reduce SSB consumption in many nations.

How SSB Link To Obesity?

In about 93% of the 30studies in both adults and children showed that there was a significant association between sweetened beverage consumption and obesity and overweight. Only one prospective cohort research in children revealed no association.

This new study involved a total of 244,651 participants. The geographical area of studies included 33% in Europe 23% from US and 17% from South America, 10% in Australia, 7% in South Africa the remaining 10% from Japan, Thailand and Iran.

Reports show that 19 countries have introduced taxes on both drinks and foods in the aim to target the reduction of sugar consumption by 20% in accordance to the World Health Organization’s guidelines. This would lower the risk of people, especially children getting obese and becoming overweight.

What to Do To Curb Obesity

Reviews suggest that those countries that have not adapted to these guidelines by World Health Organization should take action as soon as possible to reduce the consumption of “empty calories” that are contained in these sweetened drinks.

Dr. Lambert suggested that the association between the sweetened sugars and the body weight measure might be affected by other types of diet as well as lifestyle factors. The majority of these studies suggested several nutrition factors and lifestyle factors in association to sugary beverages and obesity. These findings suggest that there is an independent effect of sugar-sweetened beverages.