Sugar Consumption Essay

Sugar is not a required nutrient; therefor the USDA doesn’t put an official RDA on it. This has created a problem with overconsumption of added sugars within the population. These added sugars contribute an average of 16 percent of the total calories in American diets, with 36 percent of the calories being consumed in the form of sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs), such as sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks.1 Although the USDA has not yet set a daily limit for added sugar consumption, it states that someone following their guidelines should only get 5-15 percent of their daily calories from added sugars, and that lowering your calorie intake by reducing consumption of high caloric beverages is a positive way to reduce weight1 However, without strict guidelines from the USDA, children are seeing the effects of overconsumption of this “liquid candy.” Approximately one out of three children in the United States are overweight or obese.2 This has given rise to certain diseases such as metabolic syndrome, childhood …show more content…
The intervention group has home delivery of non-caloric beverages for 25 weeks. Over the course of the study, with an 83 percent retention rate, the intervention group lowered their SSB consumption by 82 percent. The results were not significant with a change in BMI adjusted for gender and age, with the net difference being -0.14 ± 0.21 kg/m2, with the intervention group losing slightly more. However, baseline BMI was discovered to be a significant modifier, because the subjects in the upper baseline-BMI tertile, BMI change was vastly different with the intervention (-0.63 ± 0.23 kg/m2) and control (+0.12 ± 0.26 kg/m2) groups, a net effect of -0.75 ± 0.34 kg/m2. Still, the study realized that the interaction between weight change and baseline BMI was not attributable to baseline consumption of