Global intake of sugary drinks has increased in parallel with childhood obesity in recent decades, with the highest levels of consumption recorded in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.
Los children almost everyone drinks more sodas and other sugary drinks than everand the rates of obesitychildren’s increase accordingly, according to a new study covering three decades and 185 countries.
In 2018, children drank an average of 3.6 servings of sugary drinks per week, a 22.9% more than in 1990 and a much more pronounced rebound than among adults, according to the study, published in ‘The BMJ’ and led by researchers from the United States, Greece, Canada and Mexico.
Childhood obesity increased in parallel during that period of time, and now affects about 160 million children and adolescents all over the world. “Our conclusions should make set off alarms in almost every country in the world,” Dariush Mozaffarian, lead author of the study and director of the Institute of Food and Medicine at Tufts University in the United States, said in a statement.
The researchers looked at sugary drinks, which include soft drinkslas energy drinks and the fruit drinksand exclude 100% fruit and vegetable juices, artificially sweetened non-caloric beverages, and sweetened milk, tea, and coffee.
“A very high price for health”, both in childhood and “in the long term”
Previous studies have shown that sugary drinks are linked to a riskobesity major among young people, which in turn is linked to more health problems during adulthoodsuch as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer.
“Has a very high price for health of individuals, not only in childhood but in the long term, and also a very high cost for society,” Dr. Berthold Koletzko, professor of Pediatrics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and president of The European Academy of Pediatrics was not involved in the study.
In the new report, sugary drink intake was higher among older children and adolescents than among the youngest children around the world. In most regions, the rates they were also higher in urban areas and among children whose parents had higher levels of education, although these disparities did not exist in high-income countries.
According to Koletzko, this is likely because in low-income countries, urban dwellers and highly educated people also have more money and are therefore more likely to opt for sugary drinks, while in high-income countries it is the other way around. “It’s a question of affordability,” says Koletzko.
Regional differences
Latin America and the Caribbean, together with the Middle East and North Africa, recorded the higher intake levels (9.1 and 7.3 servings per week, respectively). Still, Latin American children drank slightly fewer sugary drinks, on average, in 2018 than in 1990.
Rates declined in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s and early 2000s, then rose again more recently, changes that researchers say reflect economic trends in the region and the emergence of healthy eating campaignsas well as industry lobbying against policies to curb the consumption of sugary drinks over the last 30 years.
“The influence of multinational corporations responsible for ultra-processed foods, marketing strategies targeting youth, lack of (or poor) regulatory measures to limit the intake of these beverages have also been consistently observed in Latin America and other regions with improving economies,” the researchers noted.
Los high income countrieslike those in Western Europe and North America, also experienced a decrease in children’s consumption of sugary drinks between 2005 and 2018, after the rate increased between 1990 and 2005. This could be due to rising obesity rates and the introduction of less sugary alternatives, among other factors.
In particular, Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a 106% increase in consumption of sugary drinks during the study period, reaching an average of 4.2 servings per week in 2018 and making it a “growing problem” for the regionthe researchers said.
Among the 25 countries with the largest child population, Mexico recorded the highest intake of sugary drinks among children in 2018 (10.1 servings per week), followed by Uganda (6.9 servings), Pakistan (6.4 servings), and South Africa and the United States (6.2 servings each ). Meanwhile, India and Bangladesh They recorded the lowest levels, with 0.3 weekly servings each.
In much of the worldchildren drink sugary drinks almost every day. In 56 of the 185 countries analyzed, children drank an average of at least seven servings a week, representing 238 million children and adolescents, or 10.4% of young people worldwide.
What can be done to reduce children’s consumption of sugary drinks?
The results underscore “the need for specific educational and policy interventions to change behavior from the beginning and prevent adverse outcomes associated with the consumption of sugary drinks in childhood,” Laura Lara-Castor, first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, said in a statement.
These interventions could include taxes, normative about him labeled and the marketing of sugary drinks, and efforts in schools to stop access of children to these products, according to researchers.
“The intake and trends we observe represent a significant threat to public healthwhich we can and must address for the future of a healthier population,” Mozaffarian said.
