According to the current USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans, one way that we can improve our diet is to drink water instead of sugary drinks. Sugary drinks or sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB’s) are those to which sugar has been added. Included are soda, other carbonated soft drinks, juice drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, sweetened milk or milk alternatives, and sweetened tea or coffee drinks.

Why the focus on sugary beverages? Several long-term studies have shown a relationship between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and obesity among children and adults. The added sugars in these drinks provide no nutritional benefit to our diet; they just add calories that most of us can do without. 

Check out the nutrition label on a can or bottle of regular soda. Sugar content is listed in grams. A gram sounds like a very small unit of measurement. Most of us do not know our metric system as well as we should, but there are 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon. When you do the math, it may surprise you to find that a 12-ounce can of regular soda contains more than 10 teaspoons of sugar.