Not in kids and teens, anyway, according to a new study from George Washington University. The finding seems counter-intuitive, but researchers say kids who drink artificially-sweetened beverages actually eat more than kids who drink plain water. The key seems to be the ‘sweetness’ factor…
Kids who drank Beverages with low-Cal sweeteners ate 200 more
Calories a day than kids who drank plain Water.
What they did
Study report Lead Author Dr. Allison C. Sylvetsky, and her team at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health noted a 200 percent increase in consumption of Low-Cal or No-Cal sweeteners by children and teens between 1999 and 2012. They wanted to know what the effects of such a major shift in consumption patterns were having on the kids, specially in regard to childhood obesity.
The team data-mined information collected from 7,026 children and teens enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2011 until 2016.
What they found
Contrary to what you might assume, kids who drank low-Cal sweetened Beverages took in an average of 200 more Calories a day from their total range of foods and Drinks, compared to kids who drank plain Water. And the kids who drank the low-Cal drinks consumed just as many Calories a day as those who drank Sugary Beverages. What really threw researchers for a loop was that kids who drank both low-Cal and Sugary Beverages averaged over 450 more Calories a day than those who drank Water.
The takeaway
“These results challenge the utility of diet or low-calorie sweetened beverages when it comes to cutting calories and weight management,” said Sylvetsky. “Our findings suggest that Water should be recommended as the best choice for kids and teens.”
The researchers offered no explanation of why the kids who drank low-Cal Beverages ate more, and those who drank both low-Cal and Sugary Beverages ate a lot more than Water-drinking kids.
My take
To me, the answer to my question posed in the previous paragraph is obvious. Kids will eat more when their ‘sweet’ receptors are triggered, either by Sugar or artificial sweeteners. What parents, school lunch administrators and medical people can do about that, I don’t know…
~ Maggie J.