A very simple study was published last month in the Australian journal Public Health Nutrition.
2,184 children between the age of 4-12 year olds' parents were called and asked about their children's "intake of fruit, vegetables, packaged snacks, fast foods and sweetened drinks ‘yesterday’ and ‘usually’" in relation to those children's' weights.
Given that juice has a heck of a lot of Calories (drop per drop the same as soda pop), the results were not terribly surprising""Children who consumed >2–3, >3–4 and >4 servings of fruit juice/drinks ‘yesterday’ were, respectively, 1.7 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2–2.2), 1.7 (95% CI 1.2–2.5) and 2.1 (95% CI 1.5–2.9) times more likely to be overweight/obese compared with those who had no servings of fruit juice/drink ‘yesterday’, adjusted for age, gender and socio-economic status (SES)."
The authors went on to say,
"In addition, children who ‘usually’ drank fruit juice/drinks twice or more per day were 1.7 (95% CI 1.2–2.4) times more likely to be overweight/obese compared with those who drank these beverages once or less per week, adjusted for age, gender and SES."Good thing Canada's Food Guide specifically recommends the consumption of juice, huh?