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Hands-On Activity: Measuring the Sugar in Beverages In this activity, you will learn how to look for information on the amount of calories and sugar a food contains. After completion of the activity, you hopefully will have gained an appreciation of how many calories and how much sugar is in some of the beverages you may consume. Materials: Ziploc bags Sugar teaspoon measure Gram scale (optional) Wide variety of sweetened beverages (feel free to use as many or as few for this activity as you would like) including: o Can of regular soda o 20 fl oz bottle of regular soda o Big gulp or other large container of soda o 20 fl oz bottle of diet soda o Coffee drink with added sugar and cream o Frappuccino type beverages can be purchased in bottles at most grocery and convenience stores o Container of juice (hint: grape juice has one of the highest sugar contents of all juices) o Energy drink o Lemonade or iced tea drink o Gatorade o Sweetened milk beverage such as Nesquik or Ovaltine o Bottle of water Procedure: 1. Without looking at the Nutrition Facts label on any of the beverages, predict which drinks have the most and least sugar. You may want to rank the beverages from most to least amount of sugar. Put your predictions aside until the end of the activity. 2. Determine the number of teaspoons (tsp) of sugar in each beverage by following these steps: o Find the amount of total carbohydrate on the Nutrition Facts label. Determine the number of servings in 1 container of the product. Multiply the number of grams of total carbohydrate times the number of servings in each container to get the total amount of carbohydrate per container. Record this number for each beverage. o Determine the number of tsp of sugar in each beverage container. There are 4.2 grams of sugar in 1 tsp. Divide the grams of total carbohydrate calculated for each beverage in the step above by 4.2. Record the amount of sugar for each beverage. o Measure out the amount of sugar in each beverage. If you have a gram scale, you can weigh out precisely the number of grams of sugar (same as the grams of carbohydrate for most products), and place the sugar in separate ziploc bags. If you do not have a scale that is capable of measuring gram weights, use the answer you received from the calculation in the step above to measure out the number of teaspoons of sugar in each beverage with a household tsp measure and place in separate ziploc bags. Label each bag with the number of grams and/or teaspoons of sugar that it contains. 3. Place each bag of sugar next to its corresponding beverage container. Are you suprised by how much sugar is in each drink? Compare your results to your predictions from the start of the activity. How accurate were your expectations about how much sugar is in each beverage? Does actually seeing how much sugar is in some of these beverages make you more or less likely to drink them regularly? NOTE: You can modify this activity to use in your classroom, either as a demonstration or as an activity for the students. Do the preparation as described above, and then have the students look at each container and try to match which bag of sugar they believe goes with each beverage container. Additional Considerations: Diet beverages typically have zero calories per serving There are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate, so these beverages are contributing additional calories to their diet. Many of the beverages contain little or no nutrients and can contribute to weight gain if consumed in large amounts. Beverages such as lemonade and sports drinks usually have less sugar when compared to the same quantity of regular soda. Larger amounts of the same sweetened beverage have more calories, so if you want to consume a sweetened beverage such as a soda, select a smaller container. Even though juices contain some nutrients, they also contain a lot of sugar too. Juices (even 100% juices) consumed in large amounts can contribute just as many calories to your diet as other sweetened beverages, and can also lead to weight gain. Sweetened beverages like soda typically contain little or no nutrients. The calories that you consume when you drink sweetened beverages displace calories that you could be getting from other beneficial foods that do contribute nutrients to the diet such as milk, fruits, vegetables, meats, and whole grains. Background Information: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) surveys (1976– 1980 and 2003–2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%. Obese children and adolescents are more likely to become obese as adults. For example, one study found that approximately 80% of children who were overweight at aged 10–15 years were obese adults at age 25 years. Another study found that 25% of obese adults were overweight as children. The latter study also found that if overweight begins before 8 years of age, obesity in adulthood is likely to be more severe. Evidence is limited on specific foods or dietary patterns that contribute to excessive energy intake in children and teens. However, large portion sizes for food and beverages, eating meals away from home, frequent snacking on energy-dense foods and consuming beverages with added sugars are often hypothesized as contributing to excess energy intake of children and teens. Added sugars are sugars that are added to foods during processing or preparation or at the table. In the area of consuming sugar-sweetened drinks, evidence is growing to suggest an association with weight gain in children and adolescents. Consuming sugar-sweetened drinks may be associated with weight gain because these drinks are high in calories. Children may not compensate at meals for the calories they have consumed in sugar-sweetened drinks, although this may vary by age. Taken from NSTA.org, Learning Center, SciObject, What is Food?, Carbohydrates