- Author: Christina EA Hecht
- Editor: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
University of California's Research Consortium on Beverages and Health, with support from the American Heart Association, has released six short fact sheets to help educate both community members and decision-makers on the risks of over-consumption of sugary drinks. The fact sheets aim to provide the evidence base, expressed in simple talking points:
- What are Sugary Drinks? and 7 Reasons to Skip Sugary Drinks provide simple insights into sugary drink ingredients and how they can be harmful.
- The Health Harms of Sugary Drinks gives facts on the leading health risks of consuming these drinks.
- Sugary Drinks and COVID illustrates how sugary beverages, with their risk to cardio-metabolic health, can worsen the impact of diseases such as COVID-19.
- The Heavy Environmental Impact of Sugary Drinks provides data that illuminate the consequences of sugary drink consumption on the environment.
- How Four Cities in California are Using Sugary Drink Tax Revenue showcases how excise taxes levied on distributors of sugary drinks have funded projects to improve health in vulnerable populations in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Albany, California.
The Consortium is comprised of faculty working across the field of sugar science from all ten UC campuses and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. The Consortium is coordinated by the Nutrition Policy Institute under the leadership of Christina Hecht, Ken Hecht, and Pat Crawford. Please contact Ken Hecht for more information about the Consortium and Christina Hecht for additional resources for community education on healthy beverage choices.
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
A new study from University of California and University of Michigan researchers suggests that a drive for thinness during the critical developmental years of adolescence may have long-term effects in adulthood, contributing to a greater drive for thinness and weight gain in midlife in women. Researchers compared data from 623 women from when they were in their teens to approximately 20 years later when they were in their late thirties or early forties. The data were collected through the National Growth and Health Study, a population-based cohort study of White and Black girls recruited from several U.S. communities. The study was published in the journal Obesity in November 2021. Study authors include Barbara Laraia from UC Berkeley, Cindy Leung from the University of Michigan, Janet Tomiyama from UC Los Angeles, Lorrene Ritchie and Patricia Crawford from the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute, and Elissa Epel from UC San Francisco. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Institute on Aging.
