salt, sugar, and child obesity - more from the no duh dept

salt, sugar, and child obesity - more from the no duh dept

From a new study that will appear in the January issue of Pediatrics, titled "Dietary Salt Intake, Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption, and Obesity Risk":

The study found that in addition to drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, dietary salt intake, was also associated with a risk of obesity. Children in the study who eat more salt also drank more fluids, and therefore got more calories if they were drinking sugar-sweetened drinks.

This study offers another good reason for our kids to limit juice and other sugary drinks with calories, avoid foods high in salt, and to not add a lot of extra salt to their foods.

No. Duh.

Let's follow the bouncing ball on this one..

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Salty snacks are most likely to be pre-packaged snacks.

Pre-packaged snacks were created using processes and chemicals which will trick your body into not feeling as full as it should, given the number of calories being consumed.

Therefore, salty snacks are more likely to have you consume extra calories. But there's more...

Salty snacks make you thirsty.

Sweet tastes really good with salty.

Therefore, you're likely to crave a sweet drink after eating a salty snack. And...

Sweet drinks have lots of calories. (see "Big Gulp - the most expensive product in history?")

So, to tie it all together...

Salty snacks will have you eat extra calories, then crave a sweet drink which also has extra calories.

The results of this study shouldn't be a surprise. In fact, I wrote a post a few months ago called "5 steps to reducing your caloric intake", and Step 1 is to ditch the prepackaged snacks.


What would be better is to stop wasting money on moronic studies proving things we already know, and instead spending that money on educating people about basic calorie counts - how many calories are needed to maintain weight and how many calories are in everyday items people eat..

-Chris Butterworth

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