Auburn, April 19, 2002 ---There is an epidemic of childhood obesity in America, and while many factors have contributed to this trend, the craze for high-calorie soft drinks and fruit-flavored drinks is partly to blame.

"Roughly 15 or 20 years ago, we had an explosion in the availability of these beverages," says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutritionist. "Sure, they were around two decades ago, but certainly not to the degree they are today."

"They’re everywhere, and they come in these attractive packages that are highly marketable," he says. "And because you don’t have to refrigerate them, they can be stuck in a backpack and consumed anytime during the day."

Few would deny the convenience associated with these products. But with this convenience comes a highly "concentrated source of calories," Keith says. And when consumed in large amounts day in and day out, the end result is often obesity.

"Children up to age 11 need between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day," Keith says. "Only four of these beverages typically add up to between 400 and 600 calories, so many children are deriving up to a third or even half of their daily caloric intake from these products."

Studies have confirmed a high correlation between heavy consumption of these drinks and obesity. Indeed, children who consume large amounts of these beverages tend to have higher body weights and higher levels of body fat.

Equally disturbing, millions of children who are consuming these products in large amounts are foregoing milk entirely. And as Keith stresses, this could have major consequences decades from now.

"Earlier generations of children drank a lot more milk, even if it was chocolate milk," Keith says. "But as casual milk consumption is replaced with these high-calorie beverages, the concern is that it this will lead to loss of bone minerals in kids."

The result could be an epidemic of osteoporosis in the future, Keith says. Even worse, low milk consumption, coupled with inadequate exercise, could result in osteoporosis developing much earlier in life.

Experts, in fact, are already noting an increase in bone fractures among female teenage athletes – a troubling sign of what may await many of these children as they get older.

Equally bad, the crowding out of other foods associated with over-consumption of these products is also depriving children of other vital nutrients.

"By consuming a third or even a half of their calories from these drinks, kids are causing the hunger mechanism in their brains to become partly quenched," Keith says. "The result is that they’re less hungry, and with less hunger, they’re apt to eat fewer fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods."

"They are getting the calories but very little nutritional value."

What can be done to reverse this dangerous trend?

"You really can’t make kids eat nutritious foods without limiting the intake of these beverages, because this will only contribute to obesity," Keith says.

Instead, he says parents first should limit their children’s intake of high-calorie drinks to only one or two a day and replace additional consumption with milk, water or pure fruit juice.

Pure fruit juice, however, should be somewhat restricted in cases where the children already are obese. Water and lightly sweetened lemonade should be used instead.

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