If you’ve ever raised a small child, you may have found that it is an uphill battle to get them to eat anything descent.  Some parents have taken the route of feeding them foods they don’t like in different forms.  For example, one parent I knew realized that his child did not like fish.  The mother would have preferred to not make him eat anything he didn’t like.  The father however bought him fish sticks.  Not the healthiest choice, but the child is eating fish…technically. 

            Kids are always targeted in fast food commercials, and many children’s drinks are made up of a large amount of sugar as opposed to actual nutrients.  In fact, sweet drinks are one of the major foods blamed for childhood obesity, even though they’ve technically been around for generations. 

            Researchers are backing up these claims about sweet drinks.  Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as Harvard Medical School and the University of Missouri have collectively tested 10,904 children of the ages of 2 and 3.  In Missouri, these tested children were part of the WIC program, and they used questionnaires including the child’s BMI.  Sweet drinks generally include kool-aid, vitamin C and grape juices that are supposedly juice, and sodas, even the sugar free ones. 

            When the study began at the ages of 2 or 3, children were generally of normal weight or lower weights.  At that time, 14.5% were at risk for obesity, and 10.1% were already overweight.  A year later, the normal or underweight became overweight at a rate of 3.1%.  The risk group included a 25% rate of raised obesity, and those who started out overweight maintained a 67% rate of overweight numbers.  Drinking 1 to 2 of these sweet drinks significantly contributed to rates of obesity.  Those children drinking 2 or more drinks were twice as likely as others to become overweight, and they were considered the at risk group. 

            In terms of adult obesity, excess amounts of soda and other sweet drinks and liquid calories can certainly contribute to obesity.  The implications are just a bit clearer in children.  So, children should be given more water, more real juice, and fewer artificial and sweetened drinks.