Signs Converting Calorie Consumption Into Exercise Found To Deter Teens From Buying Sugary Drinks

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Teenagers who were exposed to signs informing them of the distance they would need to walk to burn off the calories in a sugary drink are less likely to purchase those beverages, according to research published online Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.
Instead, those adolescents were more likely to leave the store with a lower calorie product or a smaller-sized drink, and those healthier choices persisted for weeks after the warning signs were removed, Dr. Sara N. Bleich of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and her colleagues report in the new study.
According to BBC News, Dr. Bleich’s team posted four different types of brightly-colored signs on beverage cases at six shops in Baltimore, Maryland. Two of the signs detailed the amount of exercise that would be required to work off the 250 calories contained in those types of drinks, including one that drinking a 20 ounce bottle of sugary soda, sports drink or fruit juice would require 50 minutes of running.
The other signs, which Washington Post reporter Gail Sullivan explained were placed primarily in “black, low-income Baltimore neighborhoods,” revealed the calorie content, the sugar content and the amount of distance a person would need to walk in order to burn off those calories. The signs were displayed for six-week periods between August 2012 and June 2013.
The researchers said that they observed a total of 3,098 drink purchases by black adolescents ranging in age from 12 to 18, and of the 35 percent of teens who told the authors that they had seen the signs, 59 percent said that they believed what they said and 40 percent said that their content led them to change their behavior.
Prior to the signs going up, shopkeepers reported that 98 percent of all drink purchases in their stores were sugary beverages, but after the signs were posted, that dropped to 89 percent, the researchers said. When compared to purchasing behaviors during periods when no signs were posted, the most effective sign was the one which informed shoppers that they would have to walk five miles in order to burn off the calories contained in the drink.
The number of sugary beverage calories purchased went from 203 calories prior to the “miles of walking” sign to just 179 afterwards, according to a Johns Hopkins statement. The percentage of people buying 16 ounce or larger drinks also decreased from 54 percent to 37 percent, and regardless of which sign was posted, the percentage of teens who decided against buying any beverage increased from 27 percent to 33 percent over the study period.
“People don’t really understand what it means to say a typical soda has 250 calories,” explained Dr. Bleich, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “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,” the Johns Hopkins researcher continued. “This is a very low-cost way to get children old enough to make their own purchases to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and they appear to be effective even after they are removed.”
“Black adolescents are one of the groups at highest risk for obesity and one of the largest consumers of sugary beverages. And there is a strong scientific link between consumption of sugary beverages and obesity,” she added. “Using these easy-to-understand and easy-to-install signs may help promote obesity prevention or weight loss.”
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