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March 11, 2006

soda: the silent killer (well, except for the fizzing) – part 1

Shaking accepted nutritional orthodoxy to its very foundations, it was reported this week in the journal Pediatrics that if you consume fewer calories, you can lose weight.

You read that right. When you cut back on your caloric intake, a strange and as yet unidentified process takes place (perhaps magical in nature) in which weight can in fact be “lost.”

Heralded as a possible breakthrough in the battle against childhood obesity, a study conducted through the Children’s Hospital in Boston arranged to have diet drinks delivered right to participant’s doorsteps. The volunteers were then asked to drink the free diet beverages rather than go out and buy sugar-laden ones during the 25-week period of the trial.

"The study illustrates that if you make alternatives available to kids they will drink them," observed Dr. David Ludwig, one of the authors of the study. And by “make alternatives available” he means, “promise them a $100 gift certificate at the local mall, too.”  (This sheds new light on the Jack Abramoff scandal suggesting that his donations to Congressmen could be viewed as not so much “bribes” as merely clinically based “incentives” to  encourage behavioral changes more in concert with a healthy lifestyle one facet of which is approving Indian casino licenses.)

Perhaps just as interesting, the study found that the only people who actually lost weight under the program were those who were already overweight suggesting that rather than raising taxes on all sugary soft drinks and pulling vending machines out of schools, future anti-obesity programs might benefit (and this is only preliminary) from targeting people who are actually obese. Oh, sure, that may sound like crazy talk now but that's what they told Thomas Edison and his brother Albert Einstein when they said they could build a flying machine!

What else can we learn from this study?

The powerfully persuasive properties of kitchen magnets.

Every participant received “Think Before You Drink” kitchen magnets that were placed on refrigerator doors. Imagine the possibilities: “Think Before You Leak” magnets for Scooter Libby. “Think Before You… Do Anything” magnets for Hillary Clinton. “Think Before You Think” magnets for the Oval Office mini fridge and “Think Before You Agree to Host” magnets for The Daily Show break room.

Are sugary soft drinks the menace that this study suggests? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this investigative series.

In the meantime, we’re going to “Think Before We Drink” ourselves and ponder carefully the relative health merits of Tanqueray vs. Myers.

J.

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March 11, 2006 at 02:00 PM in Health & Fitness | Permalink

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