Sugary Drinks Tied to Preschoolers' Extra Pounds

Study found those who drank more of them were more likely to be obese at age 5
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Preschool children who regularly have sugary drinks tend to pack on more pounds than other youngsters, a large study of U.S. children suggests.
Researchers found that among the 2- to 5-year-olds they followed, those who routinely had sugar-sweetened drinks at age 5 were 43 percent more likely to be obese than their peers who rarely had those drinks.
In addition, 2-year-olds who downed at least one sugary drink a day gained more weight over the next few years than their peers.
The results, reported online Aug. 5 and in the September print issue of the journal Pediatrics, add to evidence tying sugar-laden drinks to excess pounds in older kids. And although the study cannot prove it's the beverages causing the added weight, experts said parents should opt for water and milk to quench preschoolers' thirst.
"We can't say for sure that cutting out sugar-sweetened beverages would prevent excess weight gain," said lead researcher Dr. Mark DeBoer, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
"[But] there are healthy sources of calories, and there are less healthy sources," he said. "Sugar-sweetened beverages don't have other nutritional benefits."
Water, on the hand, is a sugar-free way for kids to hydrate. "And milk," DeBoer said, "has vitamin D, protein and calcium." Plus, he added, the protein and fat in milk make young children feel full, so they may eat less than they do when their diets are filled with sugary -- but less satisfying -- drinks.
Plenty of factors influence childhood obesity, including genes, overall diet and physical activity, said Dr. Anisha Patel, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.
"[But] sugar-sweetened beverages stand out as one of the main contributors to obesity," she said.
They're tasty, cheap and well-advertised, said Patel, who co-wrote an editorial on the study with Lorrene Ritchie, a registered dietitian at the University of California, Berkeley.
Patel said that, based on federal government research, U.S. kids would slash 235 daily calories from their diets if they swapped sugary drinks or 100 percent fruit juice for water.
"That is about the equivalent of walking for an hour," Patel said.
The current findings are based on 9,600 kids taking part in a government-sponsored study. DeBoer's team looked at the relationship between kids' sugary drink intake -- as reported by their moms -- and their weight changes.
Overall, about 15 percent of the children were overweight at any age, and a similar number were obese. At age 5, children who downed at least one sugary drink per day were 43 percent more likely to be obese than those who rarely had sweetened drinks.
That was with certain other factors, such as family income and TV viewing, taken into account.
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1 in 3 Young U.S. Women Uses 'Withdrawal' for Birth Control

But new study confirms that it's not good for preventing pregnancy

By Mary Brophy Marcus

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Withdrawal is an old-fashioned, unreliable form of birth control, but one-third of young women still use it anyway, new research indicates.

"Our study showed that use of withdrawal for contraception is very common, but it doesn't work as well as other methods," said study author Dr. Annie Dude, a resident in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C.

Dude and her colleagues analyzed 2006-2008 data from a national survey of U.S. women, focusing on 2,220 participants between the ages of 15 and 24. Their aim was to see how commonplace it was for young, sexually active women to use withdrawal as a way to avoid pregnancy.

The findings will be published in the September issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The investigators found that 31 percent of the women used withdrawal as a form of birth control at least once. Of those who used it, about 21 percent became pregnant unintentionally compared with only 13 percent of women who used other types of contraceptives.

Withdrawal users were also 7.5 percent more likely to have used emergency contraception (such as Plan B or Next Choice).

Women who relied on the withdrawal method, which depends upon a man "pulling out" (hopefully) before ejaculating, as their only form of birth control, tended to be less likely to get pregnant than women who used withdrawal along with other forms of birth control over the course of the study, but Dude said this finding was not statistically significant.

She said the research shows that health care providers who care for sexually active young women need to recognize that one reason couples may use withdrawal as a method of birth control is that they haven't planned ahead, and that providers need to take the time to discuss more effective birth control methods with their patients.

"My overall take is that doctors think this is such an antiquated method of birth control that they don't really think to address it with their patients," Dude said.

One expert who wasn't involved with the study said the reasons that might lead a woman to choose the withdrawal method over something more reliable are complicated.

"Many contraceptives are short-acting and require a lot of action on the part of a woman. Using a condom, having a condom, going to the store or pharmacy to get one. Refilling the pill, taking it every day, getting a prescription refilled. Travel and moving. So many issues make these contraceptive methods difficult to use or to be consistent about," said Dr. Kari Braaten, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston.

Another expert called the study "nicely done" and said it had important findings.

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Walking to Work Tied to Lower Diabetes Risk

Are you a one-upper, comfort seeker or 'happy hedonist' shopper?

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Those who love to shop are often painted as lonely souls, trying to fill a void by buying -- and becoming even more isolated in the process.

Not always so, according to new Dutch research. The relationship of shopping and loneliness can go both ways -- and the direction seems to have a lot to do with why you shop, according to researcher Rik Pieters, a professor of marketing at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Shoppers who could be described as "happy hedonists" may become less lonely, he found.

"It is not a good idea to shop to become happy or to own more than others, but shopping for the fun of shopping might actually be not a bad idea after all," he said.

Pieters collected data from more than 2,500 Dutch consumers for six years, interviewing them to evaluate their levels of loneliness and materialism. He obtained information on why they shopped and then studied how everything interacted.

Loneliness can foster materialism, he found, but materialism of the right type can reduce loneliness.

"Overall, materialism led to a small, but significant, increase in loneliness over time," he said. But he found the type of materialism was important in the effect on loneliness.

People who bought things to raise their social status -- "You have more blue jeans than I do, but my house has more square feet'' -- tended to get more lonely. Those who used stuff as medicine or panaceas -- "When I finally own my own 1,200cc motorbike, I will enjoy life and be truly happy" -- got even more lonely than the one-uppers, he explained.

However, those who bought for sheer enjoyment -- as part of a ''lifestyle of happy hedonism'' -- did best. "It turns out this latter type of materialism actually reduces loneliness, most likely because the enjoyment spreads to other people," Pieters said. "There is no bragging, comparison, or envy involved."

Of course, people may switch back and forth between types of materialism, he said.

The study was published online July 11 in the Journal of Consumer Research and will appear in the December print issue.

Focusing on why people buy is valuable, according to Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, who reviewed the findings.

"Part of the misunderstanding we have about this subject has to do with the lack of a consistent definition of 'materialism,'" she said. "One researcher might be talking about someone that lavishly overspends and is overly devoted to shopping, another might be referring to any sort of appreciation for material goods."

Materialism is on a continuum, she said. And, as Pieters' study shows, motivations differ.

"I think there is a tendency to want to demonize shopping and the appreciation of products in our lives," Yarrow said. "In fact, shopping and products have been part of human life since caveman days. They can be a great source of connection and pleasure, and they can also be misused."

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