Excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has decreased over the last decade or so, according to new research released in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
High consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is characterized by drinking more than 500 calories of such beverages a day.
The study examined the trend of heavy sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumers from 2003 to 2016, comprised of 21,783 children and 32,355 adults.
“To provide the most recent national estimates for trends in heavy SSB intake among children and adults in the United States between 2003-2004 and 2015-2016, to examine whether these trends differ by sociodemographic characteristics, and to describe where SSB are acquired and consumed by the heaviest SSB consumers,” the co-authors detailed in their findings.
Throughout that time span, excessive consumption dropped by nearly 11 percent to 3 percent for children and 13 percent to 9 percent for adults.
“Between 2003-2004 and 2015-2016, the prevalence of heavy SSB intake declined significantly among children (10.9% to 3.3%) and adults (12.7% to 9.1%),” the authors concluded.
“Heavy SSB intake is declining, but attention must be paid to certain subgroups with high intake for whom trends are not decreasing, particularly 40- to 59-year olds and non-Mexican Hispanic adults.”
