Adequate water intake is essential for human health and well-being. But around the world, the consumption of sugary beverages has risen and accelerated health challenges including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay. Virginia Tech researchers studied the comprehensiveness and clarity of healthy beverage guidelines for countries that enacted sugary beverage tax legislation from 2000-23.
They analyzed the text and graphic recommendations in national dietary guidelines from various countries to see how they encourage people to replace sugary drinks such as soda with water. Drinking healthy beverages, such as water, instead of sugary drinks helps reduce the risk of obesity and other health problems. The researchers designed an innovative tool that assigns a healthy hydration recommendation score that governments can use to improve their message clarity, justification, actionability, specificity, and visual content to encourage healthier hydration and discourage sugary beverage intake.
"It's important for us to understand how sugary beverage tax legislation is aligned with national food-based dietary guidelines that promote water and other healthy beverages such as milk and 100 percent juice," said Nicole Leary, the lead researcher on the project and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise.
"We looked at how robust dietary guidelines could complement other policy, system and environmental change strategies for governments to .