« Make healthy hydration the new norm »

What should you know about hydration and obesity?

Water, the ally to be in shape

According to WHO16, overweight and obesity are now the fifth leading risk for global deaths: in 2008, over 500 million adults were obese.

Living a healthy lifestyle is key component of the fighting against obesity. Promoting physical activity, healthy nutrition and healthy hydration can contribute to maintaining healthy body weight.

Adopting healthy hydration habits is not only a matter of “how much to drink” but also the quality of what we drink is important.

Excessive and regular intake of beverages containing sugar increases the energy intake compared to drinking water. Studies have shown that excessive and regular sugar-sweetened beverages intake can lead to increased body weight. ² ¹⁵

Whereas water is calorie free, one glass of sugar-sweetened beverage (250 mL) contains about 100 kcal. Excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages can quickly exceed the World Health Organization recommendation which states that free / added sugar (from all nutrition sources) should not exceed 10% of the total calorie intake. ¹

Go further

There is increasing evidence that the types of the fluids we drink can have a long-term impact on health, influencing the development of overweight, obesity or metabolic diseases.

Studies have suggested that excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages increases the risk of type 2 diabetes ¹⁶ ¹⁹and it has also been shown that in adults, high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with the prevalence of metabolic syndrome.²⁰ ²²

A sensible advice would be to recommend that the bulk of daily fluid intake should come from plain water.

Additional resources

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References

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  16. World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. Fact sheet n°311. Available at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/index.html. Accessed September 2011.
  17. de Koning L, Malik VS, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverage consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in men. Am J ClinNutr. 2011;93:1321-7.
  18. Palmer JR, Boggs DA, Krishnan S, Hu FB, Singer M, Rosenberg L.Sugar-sweetened beverages and incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in African American women. Arch Intern Med. 2008;168;1487-92.
  19. Schulze MB, Manson JE, Ludwig DS, Colditz GA, Stampfer MJ, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages, weight gain, and incidence of type 2 diabetes in young and middle-aged women. JAMA. 2004;292:927-34.
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