Obesity constitutes a major health problem in our society. In our country, 30% of the population is currently too fat and their numbers are rising. In schoolchildren the figure is 11%.
There used to be more salt in our diet as the “salt thermostat” was generally at a higher setting. With less salt in meat, the consumption of salt through other food has also fallen. The reverse seems to apply to sugar in our diet. The sweeter the drinks (or cakes) that you have, the more your choice of food will be guided by its sweetness. Cookery schools have recognised this increase in the “sweet thermostat”. The contribution of the sweeter flavour of soft drinks should not be underestimated. The frequent consumption of sugared drinks or soft drinks is one of the causes of the current obesity problem. Children sometimes derive 25 to 30% of their daily calorie intake from sugar-containing drinks. In this way soft drinks and fruit juices can provide an important contribution to increased fat accumulation and thus obesity.
With artificial sweeteners, such as in light soft drinks, the problem is not entirely solved. Light soft drinks may indeed have a low calorie content, but research has shown that aspartam, a much used artificial sweetener, increases the appetite which in turn leads to a higher calorie consumption.

A good alternative to soft drinks are the traditional table beers. The table beers that used to be on every family table have been replaced by soft drinks over the years. The consumption of table beers has fallen spectacularly over the last few years and is still decreasing. The fact that the younger generation of today is more inclined towards the sweet flavour of soft drinks instead of the bitter-sweet table beer is undoubtedly due to the efforts of the soft drinks marketeers such as Coca-Cola.

Research by Professor Jaak Janssens relating to soft drinks and table beer and the effect on insulin levels demonstrates that soft drinks, in contrast to table beers, clearly increase insulin levels. This rise depends on the body mass index of the child. The heavier the child the greater the increase in insulin after drinking a soft drink. This suggests a mechanism in young people that increases insulin sensitivity as the body weight rises. This vicious circle has been confirmed in recent dietary literature and in other studies.