As the Medical Director of the Kansas Business Group on Health I’m sometimes asked to weigh in on hot topics that might affect employers or employees. This is a reprint of a blog post from KBGH:

Health impact of sugared beverages

Sugared beverages account for the majority of excess calories Americans take in. Accordingly, a person’s intake of sugared drinks tracks very neatly to his or her risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Even artificially sweetened beverages are linked to early death, possibly through their effect on the bacteria, or “microbiome” growing in our intestines. But getting people to drink less of them is a vexing problem. Countries and cities including Mexico, Philadelphia, and Berkeley, California, among many others, have experimented with taxing sugared drinks, with mostly health-positive results. New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to limit the size of sugared drinks that could be sold to sixteen ounces or less, a move that was eventually blocked by the courts. And banning sugar-sweetened beverages in schools has not reduced consumption, at least in survey data.

Is banning the sale of sugared beverages effective?

Recently the we’ve seen the results of a sugared-drink sales ban implemented by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) in 2015 (students and employees were still able to bring drinks on-campus). Investigators followed the habits and health indicators of 202 volunteer subjects before and after the prohibition. Ten months after the ban, subjects’ consumption of sugared drinks was down by almost half: 48.5 percent. Even though the participants still drank a large quantity of sugared drinks after the ban—18 ounces a day, on average—they saw dramatic improvements in health. They lost almost an inch from their waists, and the fraction of the study population who decreased their drink intake the most saw improvements in insulin resistance, the phenomenon that leads to diabetes.

Obstacles to overcome

So the science of limiting sugared drinks at the worksite seems sound, at least in terms of reducing the risk of employee illness. But major obstacles threaten such policies: first, the happiness of workers is likely to be affected, at least in the short-term. Employees may rebel against a workplace culture they perceive as too paternalistic. This viewpoint was exploited by tobacco companies during the implementation of smoking bans in the recent past. This is where an honest outreach program to employees would be worthwhile: we know that excess sugar intake is linked to depression, and that improved dietary habits can profoundly improve mood in depressed people. Sharing these stories with employees in an engaging way that shows light at the end of the sugared-drink tunnel may help. After all, a decade after widespread smoking bans, norms have shifted to the point that a re-introduction of smoking in worksites and restaurants would be met with fierce opposition.

Second, your company may have a contractual arrangement with beverage vendors. This is particularly true of institutions of higher learning. However, possibly sensing the movement of the tide away from sugared drinks, beverage companies are frantically working to offer healthier alternatives and the National Automatic Merchandising Association, the trade organization for vending companies themselves, has pledged to make at least a third of its offered products meet the standards of at least two of the healthy food standards set by Partnership for a Healthier America, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Heart Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the USDA’s Smart Snacks. So leaving vending on-site but reducing or eliminating sugared drinks is a potential compromise.

Has your worksite attempted to change the availability of certain snack foods or sugared drinks? The Kansas Business Group on Health would love to hear about your experience.