New research shows that soda and other sugary drinks are some of the main culprits for obesity. A study of more than 33,000 Americans was carried out over a period of more than 10 years and looked at how much their weight changed based on what they drank. The researchers found that there is now proof that soda and other sugary drinks greatly increased the risk of a person becoming obese.
The results also suggested that soda was especially harmful to people with genes that are pre-disposed to weight gain. The main message which came out of the study is for overweight or obese people to reduce their soda intake. Similarly, findings from three studies which were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest that reducing children's access to soda and other sugary drinks can help in successfully controlling weight gain.
Collectively, these results suggest that drinking sugar drinks makes you pile on the pounds, this is not including other unhealthy habits such as overeating or not exercising enough. Consumption of sugary drinks and obesity has more than doubled since the 1970s in the US.
The gene research in particular provides a major breakthrough as to what was originally known about obesity and the results show how consumption behaviour combines with our genes to determine how fat we become. Having many genes which are more likely to make you gain weight does not guarantee that a person will become obese, but if they then drink large amounts of sugary drinks, becoming obese can become much more probable. "The sweet drinking and the fatness are going together, and it's more evident in the genetic predisposition people." says Jules Hirsh of Rockefeller University in New York who has looked at evidence from other studies.
Soda and sugary drinks are one of the most calorific sources in the American diet and they are becoming increasingly blamed for being responsible for obesity in children. In contrast to these findings, the beverage industry has hit back on these claims. The American Beverage Association states "Studies and opinion pieces that focus solely on sugar sweetened beverages, or any other single source of calories, do nothing meaningful to help address this serious issue. The fact remains: sugar-sweetened beverages are not driving obesity."
A growing number of countries worldwide are considering increasing taxes on products which contain a lot of saturated fat or sugar. David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK, said that his government would consider following the example set by other European countries such as Denmark which have introduced a "fat tax" scheme on foods containing 2.3% saturated fat or more, as a way of minimising the huge social and financial implications to healthcare that are caused by increasing obesity levels within the country.
The soft drinks industry branded the idea "ineffective, intrusive and unfair". Richard Laming, media director of the British Soft Drinks Association, states "A tax on soft drinks is not the way to fight obesity. The cause of obesity is an excess of calories in the diet over calories expended in exercise, and not the overall amount of calories consumed, still less the calories from any individual source. Many people enjoy soft drinks within a balanced diet: those people should not be targeted for additional taxes. Balanced diets and active lifestyles can only be achieved through information and education and not regulation or compulsion."
However, in contrast to this, genetic research have been part of a much larger set of health studies which have gone on for many yeas and are led by the Harvard School of Public Health in the USA. The results obtained from the study indicate that for every 10 risk genes someone had, the obesity rose in proportion to the amount of sugary drinks the person consumed on a regular basis. Dr Frank Hu, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard University added "Two bad things can act together and their combined effects are even greater than either effect alone," Hu said. "The flip side of this is everyone has some genetic risk of obesity, but the genetic effects can be offset by healthier beverage choices. It's certainly not our destiny" to be fat, even if we carry genes that raise this risk.
After evaluating the evidence from studies it is clear that soda and sugary drinks have an impact on weight gain, but in order to see a long term decrease of obesity, people would also be advised eat a calorie controlled diet as well as exercising regularly.
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