Thirsty? ReThink Your Drink: How Sugar Sweetened Beverages Impact Your Health

Sugar sweetened beverages, like soft drinks and fruit punch, are the largest source of added sugar in the Canadian diet and increase the risk of various health problems. That’s why the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is re-launching its innovative Thirsty? Rethink Your Drink! campaign this month across the municipality.

“According to the most recent Canadian Community Health Survey, children are getting up to 30 per cent of their calories from beverages,” says Kim Leacy, a registered dietitian at Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit. “As children get older, they drink less milk and juice and more soft drinks and fruit punch.”

Sugar sweetened beverages contain sweeteners, like sugar or corn syrup, and few or no other nutrients. These beverages are a concern, notes Leacy, because they increase your chance of weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and cavities.

“As increasing numbers of children and adults are at unhealthy weights we need to educate the public and help make healthier drink options more available in our community,” continued Leacy.

Leacy says, “Drinking water between meals and snacks, having two cups of low fat milk per day, and drinking no more than half-a-cup of 100 per cent pure juice per day are healthy goals for both children and adults.” She adds that, if choosing sugary drinks, reducing portion sizes and starting to choose them less often are ways to slowly cut added sugar and calories.

The Thirsty? Rethink Your Drink! campaign, which launched as part of Oral Health Month, includes visits to 39 grade two classes in Chatham-Kent this month. Students will learn about healthy drink choices and dental care from Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit nutrition and dental staff. Students will be encouraged to make healthy choices through fun activities that include guessing the amount of sugar in drinks, brushing a puppet’s teeth, and recording their healthy drink choices for a week.

According to Leacy, some of the reasons we drink so many sugar sweetened beverages are the low cost and how available they are everywhere. She says we need to look at changing our environment to make the healthier choice the easy choice.

The Ontario Ministry of Education’s new School Food and Beverage Policy will help to support healthy choices by banning the sale of all sugar sweetened beverages in elementary and secondary public schools starting September 2011.

Various organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, also support taxing sugar sweetened drinks with the revenue used to lower the cost of healthy drinks.

For more information about the Thirsty? Rethink Your Drink! campaign or about making healthy drink choices, visitwww.ckphu.com or call EatRight Ontario at 1.877.510.5102.

Editors Note: Although this article does not pertain to sports in Chatham-Kent, CKSN is dedicated to promoting healthy, active lifestyles in Chatham-Kent. If you have a health related story or release you would like published, please feel free to Contact Us.