Soda addicts beware: diet beverage consumers often compensate by eating junk food, at least according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Over 22,000 U.S. adults completed the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, as conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. These adults were asked to recall everything they consumed over the course of two nonconsecutive days, including beverages. University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Ruopeng An examined the data, and found several interesting trends.
An first classified respondents by the beverages they consumed daily. The most common were coffee (52.8% of respondents) and sugar-sweetened beverages, like sodas and fruit drinks (42.9%). Next came tea (26.3%), alcohol (22.2%), and diet or sugar-free drinks (21.7%). About 97% of those studied consumed at least one of these beverages daily; more than 25% consumed three or more daily.
Within the 22,000 people surveyed, 90% also consumed energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods (which An termed as “discretionary foods”) like fries or ice cream daily—adding an average of 482 calories from these products onto their caloric intake.
Diet beverage drinkers and coffee drinkers were found to eat proportionally more of these discretionary foods than anyone else, obtaining a greater portion of their daily calories from junk. Interestingly, they didn’t have the lowest number of calories overall—those who drank alcohol daily won that prize. (But eating more junk food and less calories certainly isn’t the recipe for good health, anyways. Just ask the “skinny obese”.)
Are we compensating?
An believes this may be a result of a sort of compensation effect. “It may be that people who consume diet beverages feel justified in eating more, so they reach for a muffin or a bag of chips,” he said. “Or perhaps, in order to feel satisfied, they feel compelled to eat more of these high-calorie foods.”
An also suggested that people select diet beverages out of guilt for previous indulgences. “It may be one – or a mix of – these mechanisms. We don’t know which way the compensation effect goes.”
He also found that obese adults who drank diet beverages consumed more calories via discretionary foods. Switching to diet drinks might not help people control their weight if they don’t monitor their diet, An warned.
“If people simply substitute diet beverages for sugar-sweetened beverages, it may not have the intended effect because they may just eat those calories rather than drink them,” he said. “We’d recommend that people carefully document their caloric intake from both beverages and discretionary foods because both of these add calories – and possibly weight – to the body.”
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