Each day we go to get food from a restaurant or the dining commons and don’t give it a second thought about getting a soda fountain drink like a mountain dew or a sprite. What most people don’t think about is the amounts of sugar included in each drink and the potential harm they can do to someone’s body. I aim to investigate the real negative causes and associations with sugary drinks in this post.
First off, a good thing to know is the acceptable amounts of sugar able to be consumed healthily. Since sugar is NOT a main food group, nutritionists have made an exception for it and the American Heart Association has declared that about 25-38 grams of sugar is acceptable to consume per day, or about one 12-ounce soda. However, fountain drinks are generally much larger than a can and can be refilled more than one time in a sitting. Thus can cause an accidental consumption of way more sugar than intended.
High consumption of sugar can cause:
- Tooth decay
- Liver disese
- Obesity
- Organ failure
Many countries blame obesity on the high consumption of sugar in each individual’s diet and
there is compelling evidence proving this true. Since soda is put to blame for most of the high amount of sugar consumed, a study has been done by an epidemics data analysis team. All the data was compiled with the rates of obesity in each country and the amount of soft drinks consumed. After drawing a best fitted line graph though the data points, a positive correlation is shown between the two variables, so it could be concluded that there is a relationship between soft drink consumption and obesity. With this being said, why haven’t more government regulations or taxes been set to limit the amount of soft drinks when it is known that they are causing negative health effects on society? Why cant people make the right decisions for themselves.
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between health and the amount of sugar consumed.
Alternative Hypothesis: There is a relationship between being health and consumption of sugar.
In a study posted Julie Corliss, from Harvard, concluded that over a fifteen-year study, people that consumed a quarter of their daily calories as sugar were put at double the risk over the long run for heart disease. Although the evidence is compelling, there could be some potential confounding variables involved with this study. Some of these confounding variables could include age of the individual, how healthy the person is and whether or not the person lived a sedentary lifestyle or not.
Overall, most people can come to the general consensus that it is best to shun sugar as much as possible. Just simple tasks, like getting in the habit of checking nutrition facts, using common sense, and substituting sugary sweets with foods like fruit can help. Although it may seem obvious that sugar is detrimental to living a healthy life style, many people forget to take notice about how much sugar they are really consuming each day. Bringing awareness to this situation is key to having healthy generations in the future.
over the past year or so i have tried to cut out sugary drinks from my diet, once in a while I’ll have a soda but I hardly drink them anymore. I did this mainly because of my teeth, I had gotten a couple cavities and my dentist suggested I cut back sugary drinks so i did. But I didn’t realize all of the other health benefits cutting out soda had, but after I read your post I realized that cutting out soda would help me a lot more then just preventing cavities. I’d be curious to know what you think of this, http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20160617_Philadelphia_City_Council_to_vote_on_soda_tax.html , the “sugar tax” that Philadelphia is imposing on sodas. Personally I think this is an ineffective way to combat unhealthy dieting.
First of all I really like how you set up the blog into almost an experiment type format. It kept it very organized and easy to follow. I never knew that a high consumption of sugar could cause liver disease or organ failure. This is a very relatable topic, considering college students consume so much sugar a day, whether it be in their food or their drinks. This is an article people need to read and be aware of what can happen to their bodies. Here is a link that tells us all of the reasons we should not intake a lot of sugar: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/disadvantages-sugar-2024.html
As someone who has abstained from soda for many years now, I was interested in seeing how much my lifestyle choice was effecting me. I really started not drinking it because I did not like the carbonation, but over time just continued to stay myself from it due to force of habit. It looks as though I made the right choice. I think it might be wise to look in to how much sugar is consumed by other foods, such as the dining hall cookies or creamery ice cream. This is probably important to penn state students due to their popularity, and especially since you mentioned how people who consume a much of their calories in sugar each day are so much more likely to contract certain illnesses. It would be interesting to find out how much consuming some of those foods would contribute to that total. Here are some basic nutrition facts for one serving of a popular flavor at the creamery to get started on this route for possible research, and while it’s not as much as a 12 oz soda, its still pretty substantial. http://creamery.psu.edu/cookies-n-cream.html