What's The Exercise 'Cost' Of Soda?

Telling teens just how much it would take to walk or run a soda off might be a good way to keep them from drinking this sugar-filled beverage. Recent findings published in the American Journal of Public Health touch on taking such instances into account.

"People don't really understand what it means to say a typical soda has 250 calories," study leader Sara Bleich, an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a university news release. "If you're going to give people calorie information, there's probably a better way to do it. What our research found is that when you explain calories in an easily understandable way such as how many miles of walking needed to burn them off, you can encourage behavior change."

For the study, researchers installed brightly colored 8.5-by-11-inch signs in six corner stores at low-income and predominately black neighborhoods in Baltimore. The signs showed costumes that they could trade in different beverages for others, calorie wise, and just how much exercise it would take to burn off certain types of soda. For instance, signs revealed that a 20-ounce bottle of regular soda, sports drink or fruit juice contained 250 calories and 16 tablespoons of sugar, which would require 50 minutes of running or 5 miles of walking to burn off.

Throughout the day, researchers observed close to 3,100 purchases at the stores by teens between the ages of 12 to 19 years. They interviewed about 25 percent of them and 35 percent of the teens who said they saw the signs. Fifty-nine said they believed the information on the signs, while another 40 percent said this idea challenged their purchase choice as a result.

While there were 98 percent of beverage purchases in the stores before signs were posted, following, that number went down to 89 percent.

Sugary drinks accounted for 98 percent of beverage purchases in the stores before the signs were posted, compared with 89 percent after the signs were put up, the researchers found. The number of sugary-drink calories bought by each teen went from 203 calories to 179 calories, according to the study.

Furthermore, the percentage of teens who chose not to buy this drink rose from 27 percent to 33 percent. Water purchases rose, overall, as well.