Some states have banned the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages in school vending machines and other on-campus venues in the hopes that kids will drink less of them.
A just-published study, however, suggests it might take more than school restrictions to curb kids’ overall consumption of soda, sports drinks and fruit beverages. The research, which appears online in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, surveyed 6,900 public-school students in 40 states.
When the kids were surveyed as 8th graders, in 2007, some of the states had banned soda sales by schools in vending machines, student stores and in the cafeteria outside of mealtimes. (The USDA already prohibits schools from selling soda and other none-too-nutritious foods in the actual cafeteria during mealtimes.) Other states had bans on school sales of all sugar-sweetened beverages, not just soda. And other states had no beverage policy at all.
Researchers found the proportions of eighth graders who said they had access to and purchased sugary drinks were about the same in states that banned only soda (67% and 29%) and those that had no policy at all (67% and 26%). In states that banned school sales of all sugar-sweetened drinks, reported rates of access were about 15 percentage points lower and purchasing rates were about 7 percentage points lower.
The story was different when kids were asked about their overall consumption (both in and out of school): no matter the state policy, about 85% of kids said they consumed a sugar-sweetened beverage at least once in the past week, while between 26% and 33% of kids reported daily consumption.
(Note that the study didn’t ask for details about exactly how much kids consumed. CDC stats out this summer reported that teen boys consumed an average of 273 calories daily from sugar-sweetened drinks in 2005-08.)
Daniel Taber, an author of the study and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says schools have been “a good starting point” for addressing child obesity. And he says consumption patterns will need to be tracked over time to further explore whether this type of policy has an effect.
But dealing with the problem will likely take “different types of initiatives” and a “more multifaceted approach,” he tells the Health Blog.
For example, nutrition education can help kids understand that sports and energy drinks — perceived by many as a healthful alternative to soda — also contain sugar and calories, says Taber. Some experts have proposed stricter rules on marketing to kids and teens. “We really need to change the entire culture children are exposed to,” he says.
Susan Neely, president and CEO of the American Beverage Association, says in a statement that this study is rendered “effectively useless” by the fact that it doesn’t track “the dramatic changes in the school beverage landscape achieved by our industry over the last five years” via voluntary guidelines.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the journal where the research was published as the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.