Healthy Kids Challenge launches new cause on facebook to fight childhood obesity

Here are some facts about sugary drinks that you may not have known:

• one can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine (1)
• a 20-ounce serving, sugary drink contains almost 17 teaspoons of sugar (1)
• sweetened beverages are the largest single source of added sugar in the American diet (1)
• a child’s risk for obesity increases an average of 60 percent with every additional daily serving of soda(2)
• marketers spend close to $500 million dollars a year to reach children and adolescents with messages about sugar-sweetened drinks, more than they spend on any other category (3)

Their goal is to encourages kids and families to swap just one sugared drink per day for water.

But they need all our help to promote this challenge and spread the word.

Here is how you can help and its easy.

Just go to Facebook and join the Cause.  For each person who logs onto www.facebook.com/nestlepurelife and joins the Cause, Nestlé Pure Life will donate $5.00 to the organization, up to $50,000!

Click the Causes tab at http://www.facebook.com/nestlepurelife . Ask friends to get involved too!

Other Resources:

Drinking your calories

Sugary fruit juice adds too many calories to kids diet

Guidelines on how much fruit juice is okay for kids to drink.

Sugary drinks include more than just soda

(1) “Dietary Sugars Intake and Cardiovascular Health. A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association.” Circulation. August 2009.

(2) “Relationship between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis.”  Lancet, 2001. 357:505-508

(3)Berkeley Media Studies Group. Sugar Water Gets a Facelift: What Marketing Does for Soda. September 2009