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Obesity: Delivering kids the right stuff

When Children's Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) clinic counsels overweight children, one of the first targets is sugar-sweetened drinks—sodas, sports drinks, "juice drinks," iced teas, lemonades, punches. Intake of these drinks has surged, in step with childhood obesity. Now, in the March issue of Pediatrics, researchers in Children's Division of Endocrinology report a randomized, controlled trial of a novel weight-loss intervention: home beverage delivery.

Cara Ebbeling, PhD, David Ludwig, MD, PhD, and colleagues enrolled 103 demographically diverse Boston teenagers. Half the adolescents had the noncaloric beverages of their choice—bottled waters and/or artificially-sweetened drinks—delivered to their homes every week for six months. They were advised how to choose noncaloric beverages when not at home and given monthly phone calls and other reminders. Teens in the control group were asked to continue their usual dietary patterns.

The beverage-delivery group had an 82 percent drop in consumption of sugary drinks, while intake in controls was unchanged. Among the heaviest one-third of teens, the beverage-delivery group had a marked decrease in body mass index (0.63 kg/m2), while the control group had a slight rise (0.12 kg/m2)—a group-to-group difference of almost 1 pound per month.

"Comprehensive weight-loss programs often do not have a substantial effect on body weight," Dr. Ebbeling notes. "People can get overwhelmed by nutrition advice and give up. We opted to study one potentially high-impact behavior." She and Dr. Ludwig are now extending their study to 240 overweight adolescents.

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