I’m in my late 30s. Growing up, my parents were pretty mindful about diet and nutrition except for this one blind spot. We drank sodas and juice freely. All day, every day. I even had a can of soda in my lunch every day K-12. It was just a drink and didn’t seem to “count” because it wasn’t the actual food. I also don’t remember sugary drinks being discussed in Health classes either. My family was careful about fat (remember the low-fat craze in the 90s?). So sugary sweets were considered unhealthy but probably more for the fat. Although there were always diet sodas which should have been a clue.
Does this sound typical or were sugary drinks always firmly in the junk food category/to be consumed in moderation and my family missed the memo? And did schools even teach this? We had soda machines everywhere!
They def didn’t teach it and soda drinks are the absolute worst. My parents were exact opposite throughout my life, they never had it at home, I went 11 years without touching it, when I moved out I would buy a 12 pack of Coca Cola to just have at home in case someone wanted it when people were over. I gained 9 pounds in 1 year because I started to consume some soda throughout that year. It’s the absolute worst.
Soda is terrible. Family member worked at a large soda company and I used to drink it like none other. Peaked at roughly 1/2 gallon or more per day in college.
I started gaining weight and learning more about how terrible it is for you and went cold turkey. Haven’t had a soda in 20 years. Also caused gum issues.
For our daughter, we don’t do juice or soda in the house. Water, tea or flavored water are the only drinks we have.
I was in high school during the 90s. We had soda machines when I was a freshmen and then from sophomore year on they were gone. So around 96/97 is when health class started talking about it in my area. Until then I drank soda all the time (and had tons of cavities due to this).
My dad drank at least two 2-liters of Coke daily until he decided to lose weight and all he did was switch to diet-soda and the weight melted off. I don’t think diet-soda was the way to go at all and he got dentures at 37 years of age but it show’s how many calories he was taking in with regular soda.