Obesity Continues to Rise
It has been recently reported that the amount of Americans exercising has increased, however the obesity rate continues to rise. In our previous blog post we explored the reclassification of obesity by the AMA.
The research found that many counties across Georgia, Kentucky, and Florida saw a significant increase in the amount of individuals exercising between 2001 and 2009. However this has had virtually no effect on the obesity rate in those counties, instead they continue to rise. The research also found that in the past 15 years the life expectancy of Americans had increased, however this was not without any backlashes. It was found that increase also correlated with an increase in conditions that cause back and joint pain. This means that older individuals do not to get to enjoy these added years.
Related to this another study found that diet soda doesn’t help individuals lose weight at all, shocker right? A recent Purdue study found that diet soda can still lead to obesity, diabetes, and many other health problems. Some of these studies found that diet soda can be just as bad for you as regular soda. The sodas that are bad for you are those which contain the following ingredients: aspartame (NutraSweet and Equal), sucralose (Splenda) and saccharin (Sweet’N Low). These are artificial sweeteners and it is estimated that about 30 percent of Americans consume these.
However, the American Beverage Association rebutted against these studies and stated that these artificial sweeteners are indeed safe to consume since there are decades of scientific research which have been validated.
Another view offered is from the NIH; when consumers drink diet soda they engage in a practice known as “cognitive distortion”. They assume that since they are saving calories by drinking diet soda they can make up for that lack of calories by eating more food, which effectively causes the previous studies to correlate weight gain with the consumption of diet soda.
Either way, whatever study you are looking at, there is a take home message here. Individuals need to be mindful when they are consuming anything and make sure it is something that they want to put into their body in order to have a healthy lifestyle. One could say that artificial sweeteners are artificial and non organic therefore it shouldn’t be in one’s body. However one could cite previous scientific studies saying it’s safe. Overall, most studies say that drinking soda regularly is bad for one’s health.