Reconsidering Giving Away Soda At Work

What are YOU spending on Wellness?

• $200 per participant in incentives?
• $40-50 per participant for biometrics screenings?
• $6 per participant for a health risk assessment?
• $4-15 pepm for health coaching?
• $2 pepm for incentive management?
• $200 per on site class?
• Goodness knows how much on staff time and consultants and the like, on program administration, and measuring of your butt kicking wellness program.

BUT does it every worry you that the $.75 peps (yes, that's per employee per soda) that you spend on providing free pop is corroding the value of what you have been spending on prevention?

Glucose, Fructose, or Sucrose?  Whoknose?
Does a sugar by any other name taste as sweet?

Most of us forgot the difference between glucose, fructose and sucrose long ago while starring wistfully at our high school heartthrob during chemistry. It wasn't something we needed to know and, I mean come on, who can tell the difference right? All of them taste sugary.

So, what's the difference? Well, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers from the University of California, Davis discovered that people consuming fructose-sweetened drinks showed an increase in a particular kind of fat that embeds itself between tissues in organs. They were also less sensitive to insulin, showed elevated blood levels of lipids, increased fat production in the liver, and elevated LDL (so-called 'bad' cholesterol) and larger increases in blood triglycerides. Yikes!

According to the study, those drinking glucose-sweetened beverages showed none of these changes. Unfortunately for us, most of the sugars that are readily available in the store come in the form of high fructose corn syrup or sucrose (table sugar).

So, uh, skip the soda and maybe provide a fruit bowl instead?

Editor's Note - It's hard to be humble when you're bloggin' straight out of Portland, Oregon.  Tanya Barham is the Founder and CEO of Recess Wellness, a company where all the staff works like little elves at Christmastime to transform their client's workplaces into healthy, happy, productive places akin to Santa's workshop at the North Pole.  Seriously.  Of course, Santa's fat, so they still have work to do.

Comments

[C. Barragan]

I read constant horor stories about carbonated soft drinks, and for good reasons. I drink only the occasional diet soda, so the consumption of "regular" empty cola calories are not an issue for me. However, can anyone point me to solid information about the relative dangers of drinking diet soda? Thanks!