Helping your child have a healthy weight and building healthy habits is essential for their future.
Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults.1 A
child's likelihood of
becoming obese increases by 60 percent with each additional can or glass of sugary drinks they drink a day.2 Sugary drinks can lead to weight gain and obesity because they add calories to a
child's diet. Those extra
calories are added on top of the calories in the foods they eat. Just like adults, kids gain weight when they
take in more calories than they use each day.
1 Office of the Surgeon General. (2007). The Surgeon General's call to action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity: Overweight children and adolescents. Last revised: January 11, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/obesity/calltoaction/fact_adolescents.htm
2 Ludwig, DS., Peterson, KE., Gortmaker, SL. (2001). Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: A prospective, observational analysis. Lancet. 2001; 357(9255): 505-508.
The following information from the CDC can be found at: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/
Health risks for obese children now:
Health risks for obese children who become obese adults:
