August 30, 2011, CBS News, David Freeman
Has the time come for school districts across the nation to just say no to sugary drinks?
That’s what some experts are saying in light of new research suggesting that Boston’s controversial ban on sugar-sweetened beverages has succeeded in limiting kids’ consumption of soft drinks and sports beverages – which have been identified as major contributors to the nation’s epidemic of childhood obesity.
A study published in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease shows that high-school students in the city averaged 1.38 servings of sugar-sweetened beverage …

August 31, 2011, USA Today, Nancy Hellmich
Teens who drink soda, energy drinks and other sugary beverages are guzzling about 327 calories a day from them, which is equal to about 2½ cans of cola, new government data shows.
And people ages 20-39 who drink sugary beverages consume 336 calories a day from them.
Some people are getting a lot of their daily calories from these drinks, says Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted this survey.
The latest …

August 10, 2011, Boston Globe, Deborah Kotz
The seven-year-old policy restricting the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages in Boston Public Schools appears to be paying off: Consumption dropped among high school students from 1.7 servings a day on average in 2004 to 1.4 servings a day in 2006, according to a new study by Harvard researchers.
They calculated that this 3.8 ounce decline in sugary beverages added up to a drop in calorie consumption of about 45 calories per day. While the researchers did not track changes in the students’ body mass index, …

July 28, 2011, Reuters
Americans downed nearly a quarter less added sugar in 2008 than they did nine years earlier, a new report concludes.
The drop is largely due to a decrease in the amount of sugar-sweetened soda that people drank.
“We were surprised to see that there was a substantial reduction over the years,” said Dr. Jean Welsh, a researcher at Emory University in Atlanta and the lead author of the report.
Although the reasons for the dip are still murky, she said a big push by the government and private organizations to …

FTC advertising guidelines encourage advertisers to promote healthy foods to kids, as well as limit fat and sugar in order to combat childhood obesity. Food, beverage and advertising industry reps say doing so could mean job loss for many.
[Are job losses more important than the health of our nation? LS]
Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2011
Advertisers and food and beverage industry officials called the governments new guidelines for advertising directed toward children a “reckless” maneuver in light of todays fragile economy.After Congress asked the Federal Trade Commission, along with three …

June 17, 2011, ABC news/Medpage Today, Kristina Fiore
Although high school students report drinking plenty of water, milk, and real fruit juice, they still gulp down more sugar-sweetened beverages than is probably good for them, CDC researchers found.
Nearly three-quarters (72.4 percent) of the teens who responded to a national survey said they drank at least one glass of water a day over the preceding seven days, Nancy Brener of the CDC and colleagues reported in the June 17 issue of Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.
Among the 11,429 survey respondents, 42 percent …

Media-Newswire, June 13, 2011
A study into taste preference suggests children who are thirsty should be encouraged to drink water.
The research by academics at the universities of Bristol and Bangor has shown for the first time that overweight and obese people have a dulled sensitivity to the sweetness of soft drinks but an enhanced subconscious liking of sweet food.
The findings also found that even if people are not overweight, drinking two sugary drinks a day for just four weeks is sufficient to both dull sensitivity to the taste sensation, and …

Food and Health News, November 13, 2010
Consumption of fructose-rich beverages, such as sugar-sweetened sodas and orange juice is associated with an increased risk of gout among women, although their contribution to the risk of gout in the population is likely modest because of the low incidence rate among women, according to a study that will appear in the November 24 print edition of JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American College of Rheumatology annual scientific meeting.
Gout is a common and …

Reuters, Julie Steenhuysen, November 1, 2010
Despite efforts to limit their availability, public elementary school students in the United States have more outlets to buy unhealthy beverages at school, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Over a three-year period ending in 2009, more students could buy sweetened beverages like sodas, higher-fat milk and sports beverages from vending machines and school stores, they said. Such drinks are a major source of calories, and removing them from schools could help curb the nation’s obesity epidemic.
“Elementary school students are still surrounded by a variety of unhealthy …

Los Angeles Times, Karen Kaplan, October 26, 2010
High-fructose corn syrup is often singled out as Food Enemy No. 1 because it has become ubiquitous in processed foods over about the last 30 years – a period that coincides with a steep rise in obesity. One of the primary sources of HFCS in the American diet is soda – in fact, many public health advocates refer to soda as “liquid candy.”
That nickname is more apt than advocates realized, according to a study published online this month by the journal Obesity.
Researchers from …