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Apr. 26, 2006 There has been a lot of confusion about the idea my wife and I had about launching a SODA=SHOTS campaign. For some reason, everyone wants to focus on whether or not soda=type 1 diabetes, so I will clarify: I am intentionally using two slightly incorrect definitions in this campaign. The first is shots. I know that shots only refers to putting a needle into your bloodstream, injecting a substance, and removing the needle. But for purposes of this campaign, I will include all pricks, blood draws, and IV's as shots. Why? Because if you tell a child "Don't worry, it's not a shot," about any of these items, they will still hurt as much. The adult definition of shots is much narrower than the child definition, which is having metal pierce their skin and hurt them. The second is soda. By soda I originally intended to refer to only Coke (tm) (Choose, Drink, Die) and Pepsi (tm) (the choice of a fat generation). Unfortunately, talking with Dietitians I kept hearing that any liquid sugar is bad, and solid sugars are only slightly better. Perhaps in hindsight I should have said sugar=shots, but soda consumption is the worst item, both for parents and for health, so I wanted special attention paid to it. Besides, people are already spreading the word. My wife and I took my step-kid to the orthodontist today, and she asked permission to use the slogan with her patients, and to tell other Dentists. Permission we gladly gave. We are not trying to keep you from feeding sugar to your children, if that is your choice. We are trying to help the parents who don't like their children consuming a drink that is over 10% raw sugar. By the way, there are over 6 tablespoons (not teaspoons) of sugar in an 8 oz coke or pepsi. We are trying to provide a tool to those parents who want to avoid soda. Yes, it is a "scare tactic," but when the Soda industry spends billions every year to tell your kids how great soda is, even the best stay at home mom has trouble keeping it away from the kid. How do you keep your kid from taking the change off your kitchen counter or their allowance and buying soda at school or drinking soda at a friend's house? The only people who have objected to our campaign are parents of children with type 1 Diabetes, I'm not really sure why, yes, we mentioned that soda can lead to diabetes, and didn't say which type. Well, children are getting type 2 Diabetes now, and the leading contenders for blame are McDonalds (tm), Coca-Cola (tm), Pepsi, and other corporate sugar pushers. Ask a Dietitian about what liquid sugar, especially a substance with so much sugar and nothing to keep it from immediately entering the bloodstream, does to blood sugar levels? For that matter, soda doesn't hydrate (contrary to the latest coke campaign http://www2.coca-cola.com/makeeverydropcount/hydration.htmlM), see this page http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/er/dehydration.html where they discuss caffeinated drinks like soda, to see that cola actually dehydrates you, while fooling your body into thinking that it is getting water. If you get dehydrated and have to go to the hospital, they will put an IV (a shot by my definition) into you to re-hydrate you. According to the orthodontist, soda can damage the liver, but shots can help with that. It was no coincidence that my wife mentioned dental problems in her earlier article. Anyone who has gone to the dentist to get cavities filled knows that they give you a shot in the gum to numb the pain. We could have said SODA=DRILLS too, but I thought it was overkill. Soda doubles the risk of type 2 Diabetes, while fruit juice does not. Soda contains carbonic acid, which does more damage to teeth than the sugar. Diet soda is no solution, not only does it still destroy teeth, it still promotes weight gain (though not as much). Drinking regular soda increases your risk of obesity 1.6 times, but diet soda only increases your risk of obesity 41%.
Obesity has it's own ream of problems that I won't even go into here, we have all heard the drill before. Ultimately though, drinking soda increases several health risks, and those health risks result in getting more shots. So I continue to state:
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