Introduction: A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that usually contains carbonated water, a sweetener, and flavoring. The sweetener is typically sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or artificial sweetener used in the diet drinks. These drinks can satisfy one’s need in emergency situations and the manufacturers are commendable for meeting an important human need. However, it is not a healthy practice to take such drinks often. They are high in refined sugar and highly acidic and excessive consumption damages one’s health over time.
Soft drinks contain a lot of sugar and if the energy provided from the sugar exceeds the energy utilized, it’s deposited as fat throughout the body leading to weight gain. Each gram of any type of sugar provides 4 calories when it is metabolized or burned in the cells of the body. Each gram of excess sugar becomes about 0.4 g of fat. It leads to increased triglycerides in the blood of adults.
The diet drinks are also dangerous to one’s weight even though they don’t contain sugar. They contain chemical sweeteners which give them sweet flavour. The most commonly used artificial or synthetic sweeteners include: saccharine, aspartame, cyclamates, and aciculae K. They have paradoxical effects. People use them to avoid weight gain due to excess sugar; but even though it contains no calorie, it causes increased appetite with accompanying weight gain.
Most carbonated soft drinks contain one or more of three common acids: citric acid, carbonic acid and phosphoric acid which are very dangerous to the body. They make the body acidic and therefore susceptible to excess weight gain and many diseases. Excessive weight eventually becomes obesity. Obesity as well as high level of cholesterol and triglyceride are risk factors of Non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer. The fat deposit apart from causing overweight and obesity can also lead to increased risk of gall stones and other non-communicable diseases.
Practical ways to avoid or limit soft drinks.
- Start to count the calorie being taken each time you take a drink. For example, each 12-ounce can of Coke contains 140 calories, while a 20-ounce bottle has 240 calories. The 35 cl of soft drink contains 160 calories while the 50 cl plastic bottle contains 216 calories (You can down load a calorie tracking app). Meanwhile an average adult needs more than one hour of moderate exercise to burn 160 calories.
- Make up your mind to stop taking them.
- Start by reducing to one bottle a day, in case you take more than one, then not more than 3 in a week. If you are tempted and you fall for it, tell yourself it’s just a mistake and continue with your resolution.
- Always keep water very close to you. If water is available, you will not be forced to take soft drinks when you are very thirsty.
- Anytime you feel like taking a drink, take water first. If you don’t like drinking ordinary water, mix a little lime or orange juice with it.
- Form a habit of taking breakfast and eating proper meals at the right time. Don’t allow yourself to get terribly hungry to the extent that anything is just okay.
- Don’t store them in your fridge or room. If they are available close to you, it will be easy to reach out for them.
- Take fresh fruit juice or smoothie instead of soft drinks or packaged juice.
- Mix the drink with water if it’s difficult to desist from taking it.
- If you are a Christian, tell yourself you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, therefore you refuse to be addicted to carbonated soft drinks.
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