Sugar-sweetened beverages—fueling the epidemic of childhood obesity?

Childhood Obesity: Long-Term Effects of Reducing Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption, a First Step

Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis.

BACKGROUND The rising prevalence of obesity in children has been linked in part to the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks. Our aim was to examine this relation. METHODS We enrolled 548 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (age 11.7 years, SD 0.8) from public schools in four Massachusetts communities, and studied them prospectively for 19 months from October, 1995, to May, 1997. We examined th...

Assessing attitudes and actions of pediatric dentists toward childhood obesity and sugar-sweetened beverages.

OBJECTIVES Childhood obesity is a major US health concern, and oral health professionals have opportunities to participate in an interprofessional effort to intervene owing to their access to young patients and their abilities in addressing obesity-related dietary habits like consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). This study determined attitudes, behaviors, future intentions, and perc...

The spread of the childhood obesity epidemic.

T here is an old Chinese proverb that states " A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. " It is time for physicians and health care professionals to embark on the journey to reduce levels of obesity in children and adolescents. In this issue (page 1429) Mark Trem-blay and Douglas Willms report that Canadian children are becoming progressively more overweight. 1 Alarmingly, they repor...

Sugar-sweetened beverages and genetic risk of obesity.

BACKGROUND Temporal increases in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages have paralleled the rise in obesity prevalence, but whether the intake of such beverages interacts with the genetic predisposition to adiposity is unknown. METHODS We analyzed the interaction between genetic predisposition and the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages in relation to body-mass index (BMI; the weight in...