Sugary Sports Drinks Mistakenly Associated With Being Healthy, Say Researchers

More stupidity on both sides.

Children who practice healthy lifestyle habits such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in physical activity may be negatively impacting their health because they tend to consume large amounts of flavored and sports beverages containing sugar, according to research at The Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

"Children and parents associate these drinks with a healthy lifestyle despite their increased amount of sugar and lack of nutritional value," said Nalini Ranjit, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor of behavioral sciences at the UTHealth School of Public Health. The study will be published in the October issue of Pediatrics.

First stupid - it is all about Calories. If you consume more than you burn and you are engaging in physical activity to keep weight down, you are a fool for imbibing high Calorie beverages.

Second stupid - it is absolutely impossible for a beverage to be without "nutritional value." There are 7 nutrients - fat, carbohydrate, protein, minerals, vitamins, water and alcohol.

So-called sports drinks contain one or more of these, so they must, by definition, have "nutritional value."

Third stupid - depending on the activity, simple carbohydrates afterwards are the preferred source for Calories.

It is this ignorance of the experts that continues to hurt all efforts at reducing overweight/obesity and improving fitness.