Reducing sugary drink intake leads to weight loss

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Teenagers enroled in a project to replace sugary beverages with noncaloric drinks lost weight.
Children's intake of sugary drinks - sodas, sports drinks and so on - has increased massively over the last few decades, as has their weight. In an attempt to see what would happen if teenagers changed their beverages, a team at Children's Hospital, Boston, recruited a group of 103 children aged 13 to 18. They were offered a one hundred dollar voucher if they'd stick with the six month study, which all of them did.

Half the group had weekly deliveries of noncaloric beverages of their own choosing and the others carried on with their normal drinking patterns. Monthly phone calls and fridge magnet reminders helped them stick to the plan. Those in the beverage delivery group reported an 82 per cent reduction in sugary drink consumption, while there was no change in the control group. Among the heaviest third of the teens, the beverage delivery group had a significant reduction in body mass index. The control group had a weight gain of about one pound per month.

The researchers think a single 12 ounce sugar-sweetened beverage per day will lead to weight gain of over three to four weeks. Replacing these sugary drinks with a no-cal alternative is a simple, yet effective, way of losing weight.

Source
Pediatrics March 2006

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