What collegiette doesn’t love a good Diet Coke? Zero calories, a perfect caffeine punch for those late-night cram sessions, and it’s so tasty that it’s practically addicting. We’ve all heard about the dangers of not just soda, but especially its diet counterpart. Don’t ignore the typical “Don’t drink that, it’s so bad for you!” lecture we get from friends and family; they’re right. According to a recent study covered by CBS, “…researchers [at the center] followed 474 diet soda drinkers, 65 to 74 years of age, for almost 10 years. They found that diet soda drinkers’ waists grew 70 percent more than non-drinkers. Specifically, drinking two or more diet sodas a day busted belt sizes five times more than people who avoided the stuff entirely.” Um, wow. It looks like Diet Coke isn’t going to help anybody reach their fitness goals anytime soon.
But how is this possible? If diet soda has no calories and is virtually free of everything, what makes it so bad for you? According to a cover of the same study done by TIME Magazine, “Studies in animals suggest that artificial sweetener consumption may lead to even more eating and weight gain, perhaps in part because it triggers the body to start storing more calories as fat.” This holds true for humans as well. Basically, aspartame (the main fake sugar used in most diet sodas), makes you eat more. This is because diet foods make your brain feel out of whack and it doesn’t know what to do with the fake sugar. It has also been proven that the more sugars one consumes, the more your body craves it. Obviously, we’re all better off without large amounts of aspartame and similar fake sugars. As with all things, consuming very small amounts in moderation won’t hurt you. Pouring one packet of Splenda in your iced tea won’t have such adverse effects on your body as drinking two diet sodas every day will.
For those of you who are worried and thinking about taking the pledge against diet soda, just take a look at all of the fantastic alternatives there are! First of all, if you’re going to drink soda (even though you’re better off without!), let it not be diet. A regular Coke might be 200+ calories than a diet, but in the long run, it’s better for you. If caffeine is your motivation behind downing Diet Dr. Pepper, learn to love tea and coffee. Iced green tea with a packet of Splenda (just one!) or regular cane sugar is just as yummy as soda, and the benefits of drinking green tea are countless! Plain coffee with non-fat milk may seem boring at first, but after you spend a few weeks drinking it, you won’t remember how you ever drank anything else. Coffee and tea are good for boosting metabolism and energizing you before a big test. In the taste department, you’ll never be at a loss for anti-soda options. Water, Starbucks Iced Tazo Passion Tea, Vitamin Water, Snapple, organic lemonade/limeade and Odwalla/Naked fruit drinks are easy to grab on-the-go, delicious, and generally much healthier for you than any soda. If you fill your cravings with sweet (but nutritious!) beverages like those, your body will thank you. It won’t beg you for more sugar, you won’t get that annoying post-carbonated-beverage stomach ache, you won’t find yourself wanting to whiten your teeth all of the time, and if you’re working toward any type of fitness goal, it will be yours in no time.
Remember, collegiettes, everything is good in moderation. Stay hydrated and healthy!
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Arizona chapter.