Start today! Take on the Life’s Sweeter Challenge!
Limit soda and other sugary drinks in your home, your workplace, and your community.
Join the Challenge to protect our children, our families, our co-workers, and ourselves from the harmful effects of soda consumption, one of the biggest contributors to obesity
in America.
Join the Challenge to protect our children, our families, our co-workers, and ourselves from the harmful effects of soda consumption, one of the biggest contributors to obesity
in America.
Support a realistic goal to help reduce consumption of soda and other sugary drinks from 10 cans per week to a maximum of three per week by 2020, a healthy target proposed by the
American Heart Association.
HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS TO GET STARTED:
Your Organization/Company/Institution Can:
• Stop or limit serving sugary drinks, such as colas, energy drinks, sweetened teas, and sports drinks at meetings and events.
• Remove or limit sugary drinks from on-premise vending machines, cafeterias, and other snack-sale outlets.
• Set the price of soft drinks in cafeterias and vending machines higher than other beverages.
• Provide healthy drink alternatives and access to drinking water.
• Educate employees on the negative effects of soda and other sugary beverages.
• Educate employees on the benefits of choosing healthier drinks.
• Encourage public officials to mount programs to reduce consumption of sugary beverages.
You & Your Family Can:
• Drink fewer sugary drinks, such as colas, energy drinks, sweetened teas, and sports drinks.
• Stop serving sugary drinks, carbonated or not, to children under 6, limit them for older children, and provide healthy drink alternatives for children of all ages.
• Educate your children and family on the negative effects of sugary beverages and encourage them to choose healthier alternatives.
• Join with neighbors, friends, and parents’ groups to urge schools, child-care settings, after-school programs, parks, recreational facilities, pools, zoos, and other youth venues
in your community to stop selling carbonated and non-carbonated sugary soft drinks and to provide access to fresh drinking water.
• Drink fewer sugary drinks, such as colas, energy drinks, sweetened teas, and sports drinks.
• Stop serving sugary drinks, carbonated or not, to children under 6, limit them for older children, and provide healthy drink alternatives for children of all ages.
• Educate your children and family on the negative effects of sugary beverages and encourage them to choose healthier alternatives.
• Join with neighbors, friends, and parents’ groups to urge schools, child-care settings, after-school programs, parks, recreational facilities, pools, zoos, and other youth venues
in your community to stop selling carbonated and non-carbonated sugary soft drinks and to provide access to fresh drinking water.
WHY JOIN THE CHALLENGE?
• More than two-thirds of American adults and one in three children are overweight or obese.
• Health-care costs related to obesity total about $150 billion per year.
• Sugary drinks, few of which have any nutritional value, account for half of all added sugars in the average American diet.
• Research has demonstrated a direct relationship between consumption of sugary drinks and an increase in the risk of overweight and obesity, which in turn promote diabetes,
heart disease, stroke, and many other health problems.
• Consumption of calories from sugary drinks doubled between 1977 and 2002; in the mid-1990s, consumption of sugary drinks began to exceed the intake of milk.
• Sugary drinks’ empty calories displace calories from foods, such as low-fat milk, that are rich in nutrients.
• The sizes of standard sugary drink containers have exploded in the past decades, expanding from Coca-Cola’s 6.5 ounces in the 1950s to 20 ounces today. That size serving contains about 16 teaspoons of sugar. Many fast food restaurants offer even larger portions (with convenience stores offering half-gallon cups) and unlimited free refills, which promote excessive consumption.
• Each additional sugary drink consumed per day increases the likelihood of a child’s becoming obese by about 60 percent, according to one study.
• According to the FTC, in 2006, the carbonated beverage industry spent $492 million marketing directly to youth.
Joining our challenge to reduce the consumption of sugary
drinks is as easy as 1-2-3!
drinks is as easy as 1-2-3!
1. VISIT FEWERSUGARYDRINKS.ORG
2. SIGN UP FOR THE CHALLENGE
3. SHARE THE CHALLENGE
WITH SOMEONE YOU KNOW
"I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
— Abraham Lincoln
