WASHINGTON -- Diet soda, once the soft drink of choice for adults watching their calories, isn't just for grownups anymore. Increasingly, kids are getting their fix, too, according to a National Public Radio report.
Consumption of diet drinks has doubled among U.S. children over a decade, according to the report, which references a study published recently in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
About 1 in 4 of adults drink low-calorie or no-calorie sweetened drinks and foods. And for children: 6% were consuming diet drinks in 1999-2000; this increased to 12.5% in 2007-2008.
"This is probably a step in the right direction" for battling child obesity, Matthew Gillman, director of the Obesity Prevention Program at Harvard Medical School, told NPR.
He said current evidence suggests that full-calorie sugary beverages are the most obesogenic (causing obesity), and water is the least obesogenic. "Somewhere in between are diet sodas," he said. The concern is that sweetened beverages, whether with calories or not, tend to lead people to eat too much.
"I'm hoping that good old tap water becomes popular again," Gillman said. "It's cheap, and it hydrates the body well.”
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