It’s been tied to weight gain and overeating – now a U.S. consumer advocacy group is calling for health officials to ban the word “diet” from diet sodas and other artificially sweetened drinks.
Right to Know – a California-based consumer group – is circulating a petition that suggests that labelling artificially sweetened pop as diet soda is “deceptive, false and misleading.”
Just weeks after yet another study pointed to the link between diet sodas and weight gain, the organization is calling on U.S. regulators to ban the soft drink industry from advertising these beverages with “diet” in them. They’re appealing to the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.
“Lots of scientific evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners are linked to weight gain, not weight loss,” Gary Ruskin, Right to Know’s executive director, said in a statement.
“So how can Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi be advertised as ‘diet’ products?”
READ MORE: Reality check: Is diet soda adding to your belly fat?
The consumer group pointed to a string of research that alleges a link between drinking diet soda and weight gain. Read the full petition here.
Last month, new research out of the University of Texas warned that diet soda could be contributing to weight gain, especially when it comes to abdominal fat.
The findings are adding to growing research about the drawbacks of diet soda when it comes to healthy eating.
“Regular sugar has caloric consequences. Your body is used to knowing that a sweet taste means you are ingesting energy in the form of calories that, if you don’t burn them off, is going to convert to fat,” Dr. Helen Hazuda, the study’s senior author, told U.S. media outlets.
Turning to Diet Coke or other artificially sweetened drinks to shave calories from your diet sounds like common sense, but Hazuda says the zero calorie drink confuses our brains and our bodies.
READ MORE: Why diet soda may be making you eat more
Last year, Johns Hopkins University scientists said that, based on their findings, diners who guzzle diet soda actually eat more calories from food compared to their counterparts who choose sugary drinks.
READ MORE: Coke changes recipe; Pepsi still contains cancer-causing chemical, U.S. watchdog says
For its part, the American Beverage Association says that the latest study is looking at an aging population who was already at risk of weight gain and heart disease.
“Previous research, including human clinical trials, supports that diet beverages are an effective tool as part of an overall weight management plan. Numerous studies have repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of diet beverages – as well as low-calorie sweeteners, which are in thousands of foods and beverages – in helping to reduce calorie intake,” the organization said in a statement.
It’s been said time and time again: dieters turning to diet soda end up compensating for those zero-calorie drinks by eating more. It could be by justifying a second helping of dinner because they saved the 165 calories they would have got from a can of Coke. Or, say, eating two cookies at break if they opted for a diet beverage at lunch instead of a latte.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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