Is it the calories in soda pop that encourages weight gain?
Yes, but there’s more to it than just calories. Evidence is accumulating that our bodies don’t compensate for calories in beverages by eating less later. So, a child who drinks a soda pop will eat the same amount of food, say pizza, he would have eaten without the pop, and ends up consuming more calories. The Harvard study found that kids who drink soda pop consume about 200 extra calories a day and a study from the University of Minnesota also found that children who drink daily as little as 9 ounces of pop consume 188 calories more every day than children who don’t drink pop. In less than three weeks, that child has consume the excess calorie equivalent of one pound of body fat. 5. Even in spite of the calories, that much sugar can’t be good for us. According to the latest statistics from USDA, children are consuming up to 158 pounds of sugar a year, averaging about 29 tsps a day (but some consume up to 40 tsps of sugar a day). Pop is a big contributor here. • A 12-ounce cola has abo
