A new study showed that posting signs warning teens of the number of miles they have to walk to burn the calories are more likely to choose drinks with lower calories.
Researchers from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health led by associate professor Sara N. Bleich, Ph.D., installed signs in six stores in a low-income neighbourhood in Baltimore. Each sign displayed the number of calories in a 20-ounce bottle of soda, sports drinks, and fruit juices. The brightly-colored signs reminded people that each bottle is packed with 250 calories and16 teaspoons of sugar and that they would need to walk five miles just to burn those calories.
A five-mile walk with a 2 mph speed will take 2 ½ hours while a 3 mph speed will take 100 minutes.
After six weeks, the researchers interviewed 25 percent of the teens with ages 12 to 18 and asked them about the signs. There were 3,098 soda purchases made from the store. Only 35 percent saw the signs and half of them agreed with the information and decided to change their behavior.
Prior to putting up the signs, 98 percent of the store purchases were sugary drinks. It fell to 89 percent after the signs were installed. Most of the teens buy drinks that were at least 203 calories, but this declined to 179 calories after. The purchases of 16-ounce drinks also slipped by 15 percent. More teens started drinking water after the study that went up from 1 to 4 percent. The researchers observed that the behavior change persisted even after removing the signs.
"This is a very low-cost way to get children old enough to make their own purchases to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and they appear to be effective even after they are removed," Bleich said in a press release.
The researchers believe that their findings can be used by policymakers to develop affordable and clearer information regarding obesity and weight loss.
The study results were published in the Oct. 16 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
