Original ArticlesNutritional and energetic consequences of sweetened drink consumption in 6- to 13-year-old children☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Subjects and methods
Data were obtained from an intervention study in school age children we conducted at the Cornell Summer Day Camp in 1997, with the goal to investigate nutritional effects of a low-fat diet. The Human Subjects Committee at Cornell University approved the study protocol and parents signed the written consent on the first day of the study.
Children 6 to 13 years of age (n = 30) were selected from a group of 42 children to participate in the study. Most children in the study were white and from
General characteristics of children in the study
The means and the SDs of the initial anthropometric measures by age groups and the children's gender are presented in Table I.Age group (y) Sex N Age Wt Ht BMI 6-7 y F 4 6.6 ± 0.5 23.0 ± 4.4 123.6 ± 8.9 15.8 ± 1.8 M 10 6.8 ± 0.5 23.4 ± 4.2 121.3 ± 6.2 15.0 ± 1.9 8-9 y F 5 8.4 ± 0.5 28.3 ± 6.6 131.2 ± 7.2 16.3 ± 2.5 M 58.4 ± 0.5 32.5 ± 8.4 137.3 ± 7.2 17.1 ± 2.9 ≥10 y F 2 10.5 ± 0.7 36.4 ± 9.7 145.6 ± 19 16.6 ± 0.1 M 412.0 ± 0.8 41.7 ± 12.6 150.9 ± 5.9 18.1 ± 4.6
Discussion
The current study demonstrates that the increased consumption of sweetened drinks was clearly associated with the greater total daily energy intake. By using a method of weighed food intake, we were able to confirm an observation made by others using dietary recall or food-frequency methods.1, 2 This increase in daily energy intake occurred because children failed to reduce the consumption of solid foods to adjust for the additional energy of sweetened drinks and maintain daily energy intake
Acknowledgements
We especially thank the children, their parents, our cook Mario, and the personnel of the Cornell University Summer Camp of Ithaca, NY, for their fantastic cooperation and support of this study.
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Supported by USDA Grant 94-34324-0987.
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Reprint requests: David A. Levitsky, 112 Savage Hall, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-6301.