Eat Healthy, Move Healthy, Live Healthy

Choose Health LA - Sugar-loaded beverages are a major source of added sugar in the American diet, and the largest single source of added sugars in children's diets. The health consequences related to excessive consumption of sugar-loaded beverages are serious: the extra calories in sugar-loaded drinks may lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. And obesity rates have increased in tandem with consumption of sugar-loaded drinks -- which has doubled over the past 30 years. In fact, a child's risk for obesity increases an average of 60 percent with every additional daily serving of soda.

The American Heart Association recommends consuming no more than 450 calories from sugary drinks per week, or fewer than three 12-oz. cans of soda. But in Los Angeles County, nearly 39 percent of adults and 43 percent of children ages 17 years or younger report drinking at least one soda or sweetened drink per day, far exceeding those limits.

A new online Sugar Calculator aims to help LA County residents become healthier by quantifying the packs and pounds of sugar they consume in sugar-loaded beverages each week, as well as the total cost of these drinks over time.

The interactive tool lets users enter the number of regular sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks, frozen coffee drinks or sweetened teas they consume each week, then calculates the packs and pounds of sugar they are consuming and the amount of money they are spending each week, month, year and five years. The Sugar Calculator can be found at: http://www.choosehealthla.c...