Leverage Your Beverage

With the summer heat, you’re probably sweating more, which means you need to ensure that you drink enough fluids so that you don’t become dehydrated. Although you’ll need more fluids to stay hydrated during the summer heat or whilst working out, staying adequately hydrated is important every day of the year.

So, let’s say you’re hot and you’re thirsty; what beverage should you reach for? And, how does beverage choice affect overall health?

If you’re looking for teaching tools to show how different types of beverages impact nutrition and overall health, look no further than Health Edco! Our nutrition education materials and displays include a variety of engaging resources that deal with how beverage choice plays a central role in overall calorie intake and health.

Read on to learn more about healthy hydration and just a few of our nutrition teaching tools that are perfect to show how beverages can add extra calories and added sugars to the diet.

Water: The Perfect Hydration Designation

Hydration is key for overall health. In fact, water is an essential nutrient, making it one of the most important elements in the diet. Water helps the body regulate temperature, protect sensitive tissues, and eliminate wastes. Drinking enough water every day can help prevent overheating and help you avoid other health conditions, such as constipation and kidney stones. Plus, water also is free of calories and caffeine, making it a wise beverage choice that you can drink throughout the day.

Energy Drinks: Crash & Burn

Energy drinks may contain loads of added sugars and heavy doses of caffeine or other stimulants such as guarana, and routinely consuming them can have a variety of negative health consequences. Excess added sugars can lead to excess calories, resulting in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They can also cause tooth decay. The stimulants in energy drinks can cause nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, headaches, and stomach upset. Overuse of energy drinks can lead to sleep deprivation, fatigue, hallucinations, and seizures.

Designed to pack an educational punch, our Power Down Energy Drinks Display is a surefire way to awaken consumers to the harsh realities of energy drinks.

With satirical drink titles (Fizzled, Black Hole, Heavy Hitter, Burnout, and Crash), the five models of faux energy drinks in the display give viewers some eye-opening facts about popular energy drink beverages, revealing that consuming too many energy drinks can result in a variety of health concerns. The back of each model contains information on the consequences of energy drink overconsumption as well as the extra dangers of mixing energy drinks with alcohol, such as the possibility of increased risk of suffering alcohol-related consequences compared with just using alcohol alone.

Coffee Drinks: A Potential Caloric Java Jolt

Although coffee on its own is calorie-free, most popular coffee shop beverages are not. Because coffee contains caffeine, it’s not an ideal beverage choice to drink throughout the day for hydration. Plus, when you consider the extra fat and calories that are added with creams and sweeteners, your favourite coffee shop pick-me-up can add quite a wallop of excess calories, which can lead to unhealthy weight gain if consumed regularly.

With our A Quick Cup of Empty Calories Activity Set , your group will be shocked when they see just how many empty calories are in their favourite coffee-shop beverages!

Using the activity set, participants tally empty calories from fat and sugar in a particular drink by filling beverage cups with coloured dice. The set includes eight cups representing hot and cold beverages in small and large sizes, 150 “fat” cubes, 150 “sugar” cubes, 24 informational beverage coasters, and a detailed activity guide. Watching the sugar and fat cubes quickly add up provides participants with a clear visual reminder of the many calories they may be consuming in these beverages each day.

Fizzy Drinks: Added Sugars Lead to Extra Weight Gain

Unlike water, fizzy drinks such as cola are loaded with added sugars, which provide extra calories without supplying any key nutrients. If drinking a few fizzy drinks is part of your daily routine, those extra calories can add up quickly if you’re exceeding your daily calorie needs.

Great to grab attention, our Fizzics of Soda Display features a giant (27 cm x 41 cm) facsimile soda can containing a 5 lb (2.3 kg) model of a bag of sugar and a soda bottle model representing the approximately 2 lb (almost 1 kg) of body fat you could gain if you drink two 366 mL sugary sodas a day in one month and exceed your daily calorie needs. Fun and interactive, the display is an innovative way to help viewers understand that “liquid sugar” adds extra calories just like other sweets.

For other great resources examining added sugars in popular beverages, check out our Rethink Your Drink Chart and Cold Case: The Facts Against Sweetened Drinks™ Display. Both the chart and the display make it clear that added sugars in beverages are a major source of excess calories in many people’s diets.

How About a Cold Brew on a Warm Day?

For hydration purposes, drinking a beer (or any alcoholic beverage) is not the right choice. That’s because alcohol acts as a diuretic, making you lose more fluids through urination. Of course, alcohol also causes intoxication, which is another good reason not to drink it throughout the day. Per the Chief Medical Offers’ guidelines, we should drink no more than 14 alcohol units per week spread over three or more days.

Consuming alcohol can also contribute to excess weight gain. Alcohol itself has about 7 calories per gram, not that many fewer than the 9 calories per gram in fat! Our Weigh Your Options: Alcohol Drinks Display is a creative way to show how alcoholic beverages can pack on extra pounds if you exceed your daily calorie needs. Featuring four weighted bags ranging from 1 to 5 pounds (approximately 0.5 kg to 2.3 kg), the display reveals how much weight you could gain if you drink a glass of wine, two regular beers, a mixed drink, or a cocktail every day for a month in excess of your daily calorie requirements. Viewers can pick up the bags and feel how the calories they drink could add multiple centimeters to their waistline.

Remember: You can drink calorie-free water throughout the day to stay hydrated and meet your daily hydration needs!

The information contained in this newsletter article is not intended to replace the advice of a healthcare professional.

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