What does more damage to public health alcohol consumption or (full sugar) soda consumption?
Alcohol. Sugar can still metabolize effectively as energy if you are active/exercising or not overconsuming calories.
Alcohol has toxic metabolites and its deleterious effects are much greater in scope.
Alcohol in the scope of how you worded the question. If you opened up “sugar” to hyperpalatable food and beverage then I’d probably choose that over alcohol as obesity will have a greater net negative effect on society (if it continues to accelerate) as a whole in coming decades.
Maybe soda in long term on large scale, because more people (especially kids I hope) drink that more soda than alcohol.
I don’t know for sure, though. Alcohol is pretty bad… Man I’m never drinking again after yesterday. Lol
Alcohol, if the kids substituted alcohol for soda, we would visibly appreciate just how much more damaging it is for society. The stress, excessive sugar consumption puts on the body in terms of the possible future development of diabetes, is less than the damage caused to the body and mind of alcohol.
Alcohol is full of sugar too so…alcohol. We also (at least in the US) live in a society that condones and promotes drinking. While soda is also very accessible, attitudes toward an overweight person seen drinking soda tend to be far more negative. There isn’t really a soda culture like there is drinking culture.
Plus alcohol takes years off your life and is a danger to those around a drunk person, not just the drunk person themselves. The drug harms every bodily system and has potentially lethal withdrawals too.
Alcohol.
Sugar can at least be reasonable healthy if consumed in moderation and as part as an overall balanced diet. It does play a role in our body.
Alcohol beverages are just empty calories with absolutely no benefits for health. It can help introvert ‘come out of their shell’ but we are talking nutrition here, so zero benefits.
More damage to the public? Soda.
Kids are drinking soda at an alarming rate. Starting their lives on the path towards diabetes. They are metabolically broken before they even have a chance to enter puberty. It’s horrific.
I feel like this is too broad of a question. Alcohol and sugar are two different things, which has very different outcomes when consumed in excess
I think alcohol, in many ways, just because we will happily downplay its effects. We will go to the ends of the earth railing on processed foods, carbs, we will go on about diet soda, how big food is killing us - but the mental gymnastics we will do to justify our alcohol intake is astounding.
Also, sugar is metabolized and used as your body’s primary energy source. Sugar, carbs, are all the same in that regard. But all your body essentially does with alcohol, is try to yeet it from your system. It’s poison, your body recognizes it as a poison, and acts accordingly. You don’t do this with carbs or sugar
Like if we had to pick one to disappear off the planet? Definitely alcohol.
Sugar sweetened beverages aren’t great for you, but things like obesity, cavities, etc are multifactoral diseases. One type of food or beverage is not the silver bullet to cure them.
Take some alcohol and pour it on your living room coffee table, wait a few minutes, take a sheet of paper towel and wipe, notice the varnish comes off? Yes it does, alcohol is a remover, in time it will remove everything from your life, except the alcohol No more jobNo more relationships No more health No more friends No more familyYou get the point?
Difficult question, sugar alone is harmless. The issue lies in the massive overconsumption of sugar giving way to a poorly balanced diet with an energy surplus = obesity = wide range of issues (CVD, diabetes, various cancers, etc)Alcohol in contrast produces toxic metabolites every time. The relationship of alcohol with cancer is monotonic meaning it doesn’t reach a cut off point, more alcohol = more chance of cancer (plus a host of other adverse health effects).So really the question depends on what level of sugar consumption vs what level of alcohol? As depending on the context, either can be a better option than the other!
That’s a really interesting question. I’d guess alcohol if you’re only looking at sugar consumed in soda. If you wanted to compare all added sugar in foods…I think it would be sugar, but still a close race.
For me personally alcohol. I will drink wine all day long if I store any at home.
The alcohol free apple cider (i know this isnt soda but apple juice is damn close in my opinion) i received as a gift is probably more addictive (sugar is 200x more addictive than cocaine) but I dont cradle it in my arms all day long. I can put it down. Probably because there are juice / soda substitutes like candy bars and fruit etc. The HFCS in real US soda is no Bueno. Mexican coke could be an improvement.
One thing alcohol has is its served at social gatherings and sociality is integral to health and wellness. So different kinds of damage
Neither are particularly great for health but there are a few things to look at.
Alcohol is generally perceived as unhealthy, which means that most who consume it know that it’s not healthy and are willing to partake. The same can’t be said for soda or most juices for that matter. Kids are conditioned at a young age to consume and it changes their taste profiles to want more sugar which can effect food choices.
Soda has no nutritional value, it’s simply empty calories that are being consumed. The same can’t be said for alcohol. Hard alcohol is basically empty calories however beer, wine, mead, kombucha etc all have nutritional value and some have good probiotics as well since they are fermented foods.
It’s hard to compare which is more destructive but I will say that soda has very few if any benefits which is not the case with alcohol. Add in the socialization aspect and there are very real world benefits to alcohol. That’s said like any drug it can be abused and cause a ton of damage to society.
I’d vote that soda is much worse especially since it’s marketed to kids at very young ages. It’s a drain on society from $ to health. Obviously people are free to choose and soda is no different but i think there need to be warning labels just like alcohol and cigarettes……..
Sugar affects more of the population including getting children hooked for a lifelong sugar addiction for their whole lives…sugar sweetened beverages are a huge cause of insulin resistance, diabetes and obesity