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Studies Put Soda in the Crosshairs -- Again

From: New Hampshire Public Radio
Series: Tipping the Scales: Examining Obesity in New Hampshire
Length: 06:05

Two research teams get unexpected results and health advocates see even more reason to get people to give up sweet drinks. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Studies Put Soda in the Crosshairs -- Again
From: New Hampshire Public Radio

Soda_small

All this week, NHPR has been looking at the challenge of reducing the number of overweight people in the state.

At the national level, there is the barest glimmer of good news. One study suggests that obesity rates among some groups might be leveling off.

A separate analysis found that the consumption of certain sugars in our diet dropped about 25%

Taken together, the two results have drawn even more attention to one of the most common American habits – drinking sweetened soda, teas, and fruit drinks.

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Piece Description

All this week, NHPR has been looking at the challenge of reducing the number of overweight people in the state.

At the national level, there is the barest glimmer of good news. One study suggests that obesity rates among some groups might be leveling off.

A separate analysis found that the consumption of certain sugars in our diet dropped about 25%

Taken together, the two results have drawn even more attention to one of the most common American habits – drinking sweetened soda, teas, and fruit drinks.

Transcript

At the heart of both studies is a federal nutrition survey that collects detailed information on thousands of boys, girls, men and women.

Cynthia Ogden is part of the CDC team that plows through those numbers to track obesity rates. They looked at changes in the past decade. Given historic trends, they sort of expected to see the rate climb by about 7 percent. Ogden says, what they found instead was a much lower number.

“That was particularly true for women where there was no change in prevalence of obesity over a ten year period. In men however, there was an increase, although the increase was not as steep as it was in the earlier decades.”

They did not find a decrease in obesity. But if America’s spreading waistline is like a super tanker, turning things around will happen slowly and these results might be the first signs of change.

Meanwhile, a group of Emory Univer...
Read the full transcript