A sugary drink is a drink that's high in added sugar and calories and low in nutrients. Examples of sugary drinks include: sodas, fruit juice drinks (not 100% fruit juice), sports drinks, sugar-sweetened teas and coffees, sugar-sweetened waters and energy drinks.
Sugar has many names. To find out if a drink has added sugar, look for any of these words in the ingredients: sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, honey, invert sugar, molasses, nectars, sucrose, syrup or cane sugar.
Sugary drinks contain lots of added sugar. Just one soda or juice drink can have as much sugar as two candy bars (on average, based on a 20 fl oz portion size). Nutrition labels tell you how much sugar is in each serving, but many drinks have more than one serving. To find out how much sugar is in one container multiply the amount of sugar per serving by the number of servings. For example, if a 20 fl oz bottle of soda has 2.5 servings with 26 grams of sugar per serving, that equals 65 grams of sugar in that one bottle.
For more information on nutrition labels view this FDA nutrition label tutorial: https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-announces-new-nutrition-facts-label
The USDA National Nutrient Database http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ allows you to search specific products for nutritional content. Click here for other data resources.
