Diet Soda Research Paper

Words: 1363
Pages: 6

The Effects of Diet Soda on Weight Loss
Despite the fact that diet soda is marketed as an easy way to help people lose weight, there appears to be very little evidence that supports that diet soda actually helps with weight loss. The fact that obesity is a growing problem in this country does not make sense when one considers the ever expanding range of healthy inexpensive food items, research done into smart eating, and easy access to health professionals. Questions abound around this topic including the impact of diet sodas on weight loss, how the diet soda market growth compares to the changes in obesity, and what the companies that own the key diet brands are marketing around their products. Does drinking diet soda affect weight loss? Understanding if the perceived and actual benefit of diet sodas align is important because, if they do not, diet soda could actually be a contributing factor to the growing obesity epidemic.
Despite including the word diet in the label, there is significant evidence that drinking diet sodas containing artificial sweeteners does not help with weight loss, and can actually cause weight gain. Consider first, a 9 year
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In 1962, when Diet-Rite was introduced, approximately 14.3% of adult Americans were considered to have a BMI of over 30, which would rate them as Obese or worse. (Fryar Carroll & Ogden 2014) By 2010 that number had risen steadily to 42.7% of adult Americans being considered obese. While the correlation here could absolutely result in their being an increase in diet soda sales as a result in the ever increasing overweight population, even in that case we can certainly see that the relationship has not resulted in a slowing of the obesity epidemic. While diet soda may not be solely accountable for American weight issues, it’s clearly also not their