A new study has revealed that regular consumption of artificially sweetened sugary drinks leads to obesity in kids.
Researchers from around the world have shown a keen interest in finding possible solutions to obesity. Several studies in the past have linked obesity in adults and teens with sugary drinks. But in a new study from the University of Virginia, researchers have found that kids who regularly drink artificially sweetened sugary drinks are found to be more obese than the kids who do not.
The new study, which interviewed the parents of 9,600 kids, has shown a direct link between higher intake of sugary drinks to increased body mass index (BMI) in kids between 4 and 5 years of age. "Even though sugar-sweetened beverages are relatively a small percentage of the calories that children take in, that additional amount of calories did contribute to more weight gain over time," Dr. Mark DeBoer, who led the study at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said in a statement, quoted by Reuters.
Researchers interviewed the parents for their kids' TV watching habits, food intake and number of sugary drinks consumed per day. The survey was conducted when the kids were two, four and five years old. Weight of the kids was noted during each visit.
The statistics of the study revealed that 9 to 13 percent of the kids consumed at least one sugary drink per day and spent at least 2 hours in TV viewing. Researchers noted that nearly 15 percent of the study participants, aged five years old were obese during the evaluations.
The results of the study revealed that five-year-old kids, who had at least one sugary drink a day, were at a 43 percent increased risk of being obese than those who consumed drinks less often. Researchers also said that there was no link found between consumption of sugary drinks by two-year-olds and obesity.
Obesity has become America's largest health concern. Now that obesity has been declared a disease, the need to control and prevent it gets more intense. According to a recent study from Harvard, obesity caused due to the consumption of sugary drinks causes about 180,000 deaths each year.
Dr. Y. Claire Wang, who studies childhood nutrition and obesity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, says not to be alarmed by the findings of the study and stop giving kids any kind of beverage and ban those drinks.
"It's just they're supposed to be very rare treats," Wang said.
The findings of the study are published in the journal Pediatrics.
