Are SLAS students aware of the harm of soft drinks ?
by Alek Oliinyk
12 | SLAS TIMES
“ Soft drinks have an enormous amount of sugar – about 7-10 teaspoons per 355 ml .”
Many people drink artificially-sweetened soft drinks every day , but are they aware of the drinks ’ effects on the human body ? There are many famous brands of soft drinks , such as Coca-Cola , Sprite , Fanta , Mirinda , 7UP , Pepsi , etc . About 6 in 10 youths and 5 in 10 adults drank such a drink on a given day , according to a research by the Center of Diseases Control and Prevention in 2011-2014 . In addition , according to a study by Harvard T . H . Chan School of Public Health , soft drinks have an enormous amount of sugar – about 7-10 teaspoons per 355 ml . Other researches mentioned by the school have established that drinking soft drinks leads to numerous health problems , such as obesity , type 2 diabetes , metabolic syndrome , heart attacks , gout , and bone diseases . Another research by Amy Mullee , Dora Romaguera , and others , has established that the larger the number of soft drinks consumed , the higher the “ risk of all-cause mortality .”
Thus , it is clear that sweetened soft drinks are very dangerous if consumed on a regular basis . Yet , many people drink them in large amounts very often . Could this be caused by the ignorance of negative health effects ? To answer this question , I conducted a small survey in Shanghai Livingston American School . I asked the participants two questions . The first question pointed out how many times does the person drink soft drinks in the range of a week . The second question asked what effects of soft drinks the participants are aware of . As the results have shown , most people in SLAS drink soft drinks 0 – 1 time a week , and 4 out of the 7 people whom I surveyed listed numerous negative effects of soft drinks . This shows that most of our school doesn ’ t drink soft drinks often , since most are familiar with the bad health effects .