Amid epidemics of obesity and all the problems that come with it, health experts have been sounding the alarm to cut way back on sugary drinks, particularly for kids. Pediatricians recommend kids drink no more than one 8-ounce sugary drink a week.

But that message, somehow, isn’t getting through.

Nearly two-thirds of kids (ages two- to 19-years-old) drink at least one sugary drink a day, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, kids and adults have stopped making progress in cutting back on their taste for sweet drinks. After a steady decline in the past decade, sugary beverage consumption appears to be hitting a plateau.

According to data from a 2003-2004 report, kids got an average of about 216 calories from sugary drinks a day, which had fallen to 155 by the 2009-2010 report. In today’s 2011-2014 report, that number hadn’t budged much, coming in at 143. That shakes out to about 7.3 percent of kids’ overall calorie counts per day.

For adults, the daily calorie tallies from sugary beverages went from 188 in 2003-2008 to 151 in 2009-2010. The latest report has the number at 145. That’s about 6.5 percent of adults' total calorie intake per day.

Health experts currently recommend that no more than 10 percent of a person’s daily calories should come from added sugars (those not naturally found in foods, such as fruit). The latest estimates suggest that Americans get an average of 13 percent of their calories from added sugars—and the major reason is sugary beverages.



(The NCHS counts sugary beverages as sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks, fruit juices, and sugar-sweetened waters, teas, and coffees.)

It’s well known that over-indulging in added sugars is linked to obesity, as well as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cavities. But sugary drinks pose a particularly difficult challenge to getting people to cut back on their sugars—people may not consider sodas and sweet drinks as part of their daily calorie intake, and they may not pay attention to how much they’re drinking.

It also doesn’t help that sugar and beverage industries have actively meddled in research and policy-making to downplay the health risks of their products and encourage sales—a topic Ars has covered several times

In an interview with The Washington Post, Walter Willett, an epidemiologist and nutrition expert at Harvard, said he was particularly worried about the amount of sugary drinks kids are knocking back. “We protect them from alcohol, tobacco, [and] guns... but not Big Soda, which is extremely insidious and cares nothing about the carnage it causes.”

In a statement to Ars, the American Beverage Association wrote:

“America’s beverage companies agree that children and adults should be mindful of the calories they consume from sugar. We are committed to being part of real solutions to public health challenges with initiatives like Balance Calories, which aims to reduce sugar and calories consumed from beverages across America. We also have voluntarily placed clear calorie labels on the front of every bottle, can and pack we produce. Through our School Beverage Guidelines, we voluntarily removed full-calorie sodas from schools, replacing them with a range of lower-calorie and smaller-portion choices.”

This post has been updated to include the statement from the ABA.