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 Strategies including limited availability of sodas in schools,
removal from children's menus at restaurants and better labeling
could help reduce consumption, according to the analysis published
in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
The authors of the new report did not respond to requests for an
interview. Study coauthor Hans Hauner said in a statement, "Rates of
obesity and diabetes are rising globally, and this trend will not be
reversed without broad and effective action." Hauner, a professor of
nutritional medicine at the Technical University Munich, added,
"Governments and industry in particular must do their part to make
the healthy choice the easy choice for consumers. This review
highlights key measures that can help accomplish this."
The researchers pored through the literature seeking studies that
evaluated so-called environmental strategies for reducing sugary
drink consumption - meaning interventions that change the physical
or social setting in which a person chooses what drink to consume or
buy. Fifty-eight studies involving a total of more than 1 million
adults, teens and children met their criteria. Most lasted about a
year and were done in schools, stores or restaurants.
Some of the studies were less well designed, the researchers
allowed, simply asking participants how much sugary soda they
consumed, for example.
Ultimately, the researchers found moderate-to-low-certainty evidence
supporting a number of measures that appeared to help people cut
back on sugary drinks. These included: labels that were easy to
understand and that rated the healthfulness of beverages; limits on
availability of sugary sodas in schools; price increases on sugary
sodas in restaurants, stores and leisure centers; inclusions of
healthier beverages in children's menus; and promotion of healthier
beverages in supermarkets.
Strategies that raise the price of sugar-sweetened drinks were also
supported by moderate-quality evidence while lowering prices on
low-calorie drinks was not as well supported.
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The new study "lays out evidence that there are things that actually
do work," said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, executive director of the Global
Obesity Center and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
What makes these sugary beverages especially bad for health is the
fact that they represent "empty calories," said Lee, who was not
involved in the review. "So you're essentially drinking sugar."
While these strategies may not be the entire solution, "we are
clearly having an obesity and diabetes epidemic," said Dr. Robert
Rapaport, a professor of pediatrics and director of the division of
pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at the Kravis Children's
Hospital at Mount Sinai in New York City. "Anything that can be done
to improve that would certainly be welcome."
Rapaport welcomes strategies such as removing sugary drinks from
schools and making labels easier to read. In general, he said, it
makes sense to "tell children to drink water. If they want it with
carbonation and flavors that's fine. All are preferred to having
drinks that contain high calories."
The new study highlights the importance of education, especially for
kids, said Shelly Kendra, clinical nutrition manager at the Magee-Womens
Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who also
wasn't involved in the review. "What we learn as kids is what we're
going to carry with us into adulthood," Kendra said. "Having an
environment to help support that is potentially creating the
building blocks to healthier choices."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2IbuoVp The Cochrane Database of Systematic
Reviews, online June 12, 2019.
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