Relationship between Physical Activity and Soft Drink Consumption among Teens

Relationship between Physical Activity and Soft Drink Consumption among Teens

The media has focused attention on a few foods, specifically carbonated beverages, rather than the importance of physical activity as the primary cause of rising obesity rates among teens. Yet research shows that physical fitness is at least as important as body weight to overall health. In this study, we examine the exercise patterns for boys and girls ages 12-16 using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III, 1998-1994 (NHANES).

We develop multivariate regression models to predict the number of times per week a teen exercises vigorously enough to perspire (EXER), the number of teams/exercise programs that a teen participated in during the last year (TEAM), and hours of television watched per day (TV). Controlling for beverage consumption, age, race, regions of the country, urban residence, gender, and income, our results show that adolescents who consumed more carbonated beverages were at least as physically active as others. For boys, regular carbonated soft drinks (RCSD) were positively associated with EXER (b=0.0085, p less than .01), but not with TEAM or TV; diet carbonated soft drinks (DCSD) were not related to EXER, TEAM, or TV. For girls, neither DCSD nor RCSD was associated with the measures of physical activity.

Across most of our models, physical activity was associated with age and race. Older teens were less physically active, and African-American and Hispanic teens were less active than Caucasians. Among boys, there was an inverse relationship between TV and EXER or TEAM, but there was no relationship between TV and EXER or TEAM among girls.

Our results show that teens who consume more carbonated beverages are as active or more active than are those who do not consume carbonated beverages.

Research was supported by an unrestricted grant from the National Soft Drink Association.