Obesity Epidemic: Sodas, Sugary Juices to Blame for Spike in Obesity, Linked to TV Consumption [STUDY]

Sodas, sugary juices and sports drinks have long been tied with obesity, but now a new study looks at the damage it can already cause children who have barely reached kindergarten.

The new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, warns parents and caretakers of the harmful effects giving sugary drinks to children between the young ages of two and five, and how it can lead to obesity.

Childhood obesity rates have tripled over the past three decades in the United States. An staggering 17 percent of children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 are obese, the CDC reports. Parents are urged to make wiser decisions in the food they offer they children, including their drinks which is known to hide alarmingly high amounts of calories.

"Even though sugar-sweetened beverages are relatively a small percentage of the calories that children take in, that additional amount of calories did contribute to more weight gain over time," said Dr. Mark DeBoer, who led the study at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

As part of the study, researchers surveyed the parents of 9,600 children when the kids were two, four and five years old. The children, who were all born in 2001, were weighed at each visit, along with their mothers. The children were all born in 2001. Parents reported on their income and education, as well as how often children drank sugary beverages and watched TV.

The study found that between 9 and 13 percent of the children drank one sugary drink a day, were more likely to watch about 2 hours of TV daily, and whose mothers were also overweight.

After accounting for those influences as well as families' socioeconomic status, the researchers found five-year-olds who had at least one sugary drink each day were 43 percent more likely to be obese than those who drank the beverages less frequently or not at all.

"Even though sugar-sweetened beverages are relatively a small percentage of the calories that children take in, that additional amount of calories did contribute to more weight gain over time," said Dr. Mark DeBoer, from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, lead author of the study.  A 20 ounce soda contains an average of 15 - 18 teaspoons of sugar, around 240 calories.

Young children are recommended to drink water, juice diluted with water or milk. After the age of 2, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends switching from whole milk to low fat milk, such as 2%, 1% or fat-free milk to curb obesity as milk contains high amounts of sugar.

"This is really just adding to the evidence we already know that (drinking) sugar-sweetened beverages in childhood is associated with weight gain. It's definitely one of the major, if not the main, driver in childhood obesity," Dr Y Claire Wang, a specialist in childhood nutrition and obesity at the Columbia University in NY.