At the heart of summer, few others can seem more attractive than the promised respite of an ice cream cone or a box of refrigerated soda. It turns out that as climate change warms the planet, this sweet siren song becomes stronger: a new study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change revealed that temperatures have warmed up, the Americans bought more artificially watered down treats.
By examining a national purchase sample of American household consumers between 2004 and 2019 and reprimanding this with localized weather data, analyzing temperatures, precipitation, humidity and wind speed, researchers have found that the consumption of sugar added for Americans increased in locking with medium temperatures. They also used climatic projections to predict how these trends could align themselves with future climate change, noting that if emissions continue without control, excessive sugar consumption would go at the end of the century. This is the last element of evidence in a mountain of research showing how climate change resumes what we eat and how we eat it.
“The rise in temperatures makes a difference on what you eat and drink,” said Pan He, study author and lecturer in environmental social sciences and sustainability at the University of Cardiff. “We do not take many second reflection on what we eat and drink and how it can react to climate change, but in fact, this research shows that this would be the case.”
For each 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, the consumption of sugar added in American households increased by approximately 0.7 grams per person per day between 2004 and 2019, the scientists found, with a significant escalation when temperatures reached between 68 and 86 degrees F. Sugar consumption peaks were concentrated when temperatures moved between 54 and 86 degrees. The highest increases in the form of sugary drinks like soda and juice, while frozen desserts have followed suit. (Pastries and other bakery products have seen notable divers in consumer purchases trends during the periods studied.) The international research team also predicts the consumption of sugar nationwide could increase by almost 3 grams per day by 2095 in the future in high greenhouse gas emissions.
This dynamic of the rise in temperatures supplying our desires of sweet treats is hardly unexpected. After all, it is well known that heater The time it takes that the bodies lose more water, which makes people want sources of hydration, and that people generally tend to love sweet things, especially in liquid form. The study traces a new course by connecting two distinct research corps by examining exactly What The human body aspires when temperatures increase and people need relief.
What does climate change for agriculture mean? Less food and more emissions.
Inequalities also abound in data. The amount of sugar added consumed during warmer spells is proportionally much higher for low -income American families compared to the richest households – even up to five times the difference. According to him, health implications could be enormous, including an increased risk of diabetes, poor cardiovascular health, obesity and several cancers, among other complications.
“The importance is Why This is the case, ”he added.
Other experts are not sold on the importance of the new document. Andrew Odegaard, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC Irvine, who was not involved in research, called the results and language used by the authors “overestimated” and “limited, with extremely solid hypotheses”. According to Odegaard, the results, while “statistical significance”, are “probably intangible of a nutritional or basic clinical health”. He argued that the results “also contradict other more granular, complete and representative data on the contribution of sugar added to the American population, which in fact dropped / leveled.”
To put these results in a clearer context, it helps to understand how the Americans are already consuming. The American centers for the control of diseases are close that the daily consumption of average sugar for Americans is in about 68 grams per person – which is equivalent to around 17 teaspoons. Kelly Horton, main vice-president of public policies and government relations at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, noted that the main health authorities recommended a daily contribution “significantly lower than that”. A 2023 study revealed that, although the consumption of sugar added to the United States has decreased in recent decades, “many Americans are still consuming too much”, while another recent study has revealed that a young out of three American consumes more than 15% of their daily total calories from added sugars.
“We have seen with this study and other studies, than Americans, in particular children, consume much higher quantities in terms of added sugars and their food,” said Eric Crosbia, a political scientist studying public health policy at the University of Nevada, Reno, who did not participate in the new article.
Crosbia added that the conclusions of scientists share the connective tissue with a political document last week which has the public health community of America in preheating: the long -awaited strategy report of Make Healthy Again, long -awaited from the Trump administration. “So the way this is linked to the Maha’s report is that there is in fact very little [the MAHA report] on the fight against sugar reduction with children. The things that are mentioned, it does not seem to be a clear plan, “he said.” It is a lot of lip service. It’s a lot, they will do it say That they will address this, but there is really no coherent plan or strategy. »»
Trump’s latest USDA cuts undergo its plan to “make America healthy”
Led by the US Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the MAHA document advances the previous statements of the administration on the urgent need to reform American diets to reduce chronic illnesses in children. Although the plan calls for the average diet of the American child a source of “declining health” and identifies excessive sugar consumption as one of the contributory factors behind the problem – “sugar is poison” was a rallying cry of RFK JR. This year – the experts in food and nutrition say that the commission roadmap is lacking regulatory teeth.
For example, significantly absent from the plan is the mention of the increase in taxes on sugary drinks, a strategy that has proven to be very effective in reducing household sugar consumption, according to Crosbia. An excise tax promulgated between 2017 and 2018 on sugary drinks in Seattle, Boulder, Philadelphia, Oakland and San Francisco gave spectacular results when the drinking products purchase rates in the five cities dropped by around 33% after retail prices were increased by 33.1% in the same period. “It’s a big and big mistake to miss it,” said Crosbia. “Many of us in the public health community believe that the report has been diverted by societies.”
Now it seems that Trump administration is ready to ignore another factor contributing to the large amount of sugar in the diet of Americans – climate change. Without concerted action to mitigate emissions, the new study shows how the heating health charge could be amplified by the growing quantity of American sugar, Americans are on the right track to consume as average temperatures continue to climb.
“We know that climate change is an existential threat to public health, but there is no mention in the Maha report,” said Betsy Southerland, a 30 -year -old veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency and former director of science and technology at the agency’s water office. “The way in which the Maha report is designed, it is very in line with anti-climate scientists, the climate negatives of the Trump administration. There is no mention of greenhouse gas.” Sutherland told Grist that the report also omits any request for regulating food or processed dyes, and multiple ways to toxic exposure – which all affect food supply.
“It’s a spin document,” said Southerland. “Do not pay any attention to what he says, pay attention to what they do in this administration to protect the health of children.”
