Regardless of your personal opinion on the ban, there is something that’s indisputable: Sugary drinks aren’t good for us. Period. And a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine offers up even more proof as to why. Researchers at the VU University of Amsterdam studied more than 400 schoolchildren. The participants, all of whom already drank sugary drinks routinely, were assigned one eight-ounce can a day of either a zero-calorie, noncarbonated, artificially sweetened beverage, or a sugar-containing noncarbonated beverage. During the study, each child drank roughly six cans a week for 18 months, and researchers measured the kids inside and out: height, weight, skin-fold thickness, waist circumference, fat mass, and urine samples. So what’d they find? Replacing a sugary beverage with one that’s sugar-free reduced weight gain and fat accumulation. Kids in the sugar-free group gained 35% less body fat and weighed an average of 2.2 pounds less than their sugary counterparts. The authors speculate that by consuming less sugar in liquid form, the kids’ insulin spikes were reduced and their hunger diminished. But before you reach for diet soda, know this: The study found that simply switching to artificially sweetened beverages is, by itself, insufficient to fight weight gain. (And some studies have found that artificial sweeteners are linked to weight gain, so check out the 7 Dangers of Drinking Diet Soda before stocking up on the sugar-free carbonated stuff.) Stateside, the problem with drinking soda is huge. Researchers point out that children in the United States consume almost three times as many calories from sugar-sweetened beverages as the amount in the trial. That’s more one banned NYC-banned beverage size a day. Still want that Big Gulp?
