Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Say Half Of Americans Drink Sugar Sweetened Drinks Daily

Approximately half of Americans drink a sugar-sweetened beverage on any given day, with teenagers and young men consuming way more than recommended limits for staying healthy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, half of the population age 2 and older consumes sugary drinks — meaning soda, sweetened bottled water, sports and energy drinks and fruit drinks (but not 100-percent juice) — every day. This is in spite of recommendations from groups like the American Heart Association, which advocates drinking fewer than three cans of soda, or the caloric equivalent thereof, per week.

This issue continues to be a national problem, nutrition experts say. “Sugar-sweetened beverages are the number one single source of calories in the American diet and account for about half of all added sugars that people consume,” says Rachel Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association and a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont.

Boys aged 12 to 19 consumed 273 calories a day from sugar-sweetened drinks, or the equivalent of about two 12-ounce cans of carbonated cola — more than any other group. Men aged 20 to 39 consumed 252 calories a day from beverages containing added sugar, the second-highest amount.

African Americans are the biggest consumers of sugar drinks, and lower income Americans also drink more of these beverages than their wealthier counterparts.

Sweetened drinks have been linked to the U.S. explosion in obesity, and health officials have been urging people to cut back. Many schools have stopped selling soda or artificial juices.

The beverage industry produces the equivalent of more than nine cans of sugary drinks per person per week, though some of that is wasted. Meanwhile, people who participate in food consumption surveys, such as that used in a study released today by the Centers for Disease Control, acknowledge consuming just over six cans per week. Because people typically understate consumption, especially of unhealthy foods, actual consumption is somewhere between six and nine. Those averages include the 50 percent of people that do not drink any sugary drinks on a given day.