Q. I would like to find the best soft drink for my teenage children. I know they will have opportunity to buy them when they are out, but at least at home I want them to have the safest one. How do I choose?
A. A huge increase in soft-drink consumption by children over the past few years is no accident. It is due to intense marketing efforts by soft-drink companies. Coca-Cola, for example, has set the goal of raising consumption of its products in the U.S. by at least 25% per year. The adult market is so flat that kids have become the targets. According to a 1999 article in an industry publication, “Influencing elementary school students is very important to soft drink marketers.”
It seems to be working. Young men ages 12-29 consume on average more than 160 gallons of soft drinks per year (almost 2 quarts per day) and girls about 30% less. Teenage girls already consume only 60% of the recommended amount of calcium, and soda-pop drinkers consume even less calcium than nondrinkers do. It is crucial for girls in their teens and 20s to build up bone mass to reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life, and heavy consumption of soft drinks works against this.
Now that soft drinks are sold in almost all public schools, teenagers are developing a condition that in the past was found only in the elderly: yellow teeth resulting from loss of enamel. In 1996, research found that dental erosion as a result of drinking acidic soft drinks affected 30% of 13-year-olds. The culprit seems to be excessive amounts of phosphoric acid in soft drinks, which also causes digestive problems and bone loss. Phosphoric acid is chemically classified as a “strong” acid compared to “weak” acids such as acetic or citric, which are found in many foods as well as some soft drinks. Teenagers often sip sodas throughout the day, and the phosphoric acid makes the saliva too acidic. In order to bring the saliva pH back to normal, the body pulls calcium from the teeth.
Many soft drinks contain 40-50 milligrams of caffeine, which will increase stomach-acid levels. Drinking soft drinks on an empty stomach can upset the fragile acid-alkaline balance of the stomach, creating a continuous acid environment and leading to inflammation of the stomach lining. Chronic “stomach ache” is another problem for teenagers that often goes away when caffeine-containing soft drinks are stopped.
So what can kids drink since they are not going to stop drinking soft drinks? There may be no safe and socially acceptable soft drinks for teens, but the guidelines to lay down include no phosphoric acid, no caffeine, and no artificial sweeteners. These will be listed as ingredients in very tiny print on the bottle or bottle cap. At home, you can make lovely fizzy drinks with half club soda and half fruit juice (preferably home-squeezed). The 50% fruit-juice content is still twice as much as is in the usual “fruit drinks” that are beginning to substitute for carbonated drinks.
It’s time school systems stopped selling soft drinks and candy in hallways, and they should also stop auctioning themselves off to the highest bidder for soft-drink marketing rights. Those deals profit the companies and schools at the expense of the students’ health. Parents can serve as good role models by reducing their own soft-drink consumption. Soft drinks are bad for adults, too.
This article appears in August 15 • 2003.