The Influence of Beverage Choice on Body Weight Over 4 Weeks
Authors: Johnson Evan C , Adams J.D. C , Jansen Lisa T , Capitain‐Jiménez Catalina , Kavouras Stavros A 
Published: November 2023

OBJECTIVE

Daily beverage choices can impact caloric intake. Specifically, items such as sugar sweetened beverages may contribute to weight gain over the course of years, while water intake has been associated with weight maintenance as well as other healthy behaviors. The long duration of past analyses may mute the acute impact beverage choices may have on body weight. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate if parity in beverage choice was associated with change in weight status over a one month period.

METHODS

This is a secondary analysis of a data set containing anthropomorphic, physical activity, food information, and beverage choice data of 52 women (42±14 y, 164±6 cm, 72±17 kg, 37±9 %BF) and 49 men (40±13 y, 177±7 cm, 81±16 kg, 24±9 %BF) volunteered to record all food and fluid consumed in two out of four weeks of observation. Food and beverage records were completed during the second and fourth week of the observation. Beverages were classified into six categories; water, hot drinks, milk drinks, sugar sweetened beverages, diet beverages, and alcohol. Physical activity was assessed with the use of the international physical activity questionnaire on three separate occasions. All measurements were averaged in an effort to provide information about total intake and activity over the course of the observation. Initial Pearson correlations between variables were calculated. Next, after accounting for influence of age, BMI, physical activity, and calories consumed from food; multivariate, stepwise linear regression was completed to assess if beverage volume or volume from a specific beverage categories predicted change in weight status over 4 weeks.

RESULTS

The mean intakes Pearson correlations revealed that change in body mass was negatively associated with the average daily volumes of; water (r = −0.20, p = 0.03), and diet drinks (r = −0.19, p = 0.03) and positively associated with daily volume of sugar sweetened beverages (r = 0.21, p = 0.02). After accounting for demographics, physical activity, and caloric intake from food, weight change over the four weeks was significantly predicted (F[6,94] = 2.54, R2 = 0.08, p = 0.03) by the combination of plain water (t = −2.55, beta = −0.26, p = 0.01) and diet beverage intake (t = −2.51, beta = −0.25, p = 0.01). Plain water intake was negatively associated with both sugar sweetened beverage intake (r = −0.19, p = 0.03) and diet beverage intake (r = −0.25, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

The current analysis demonstrates a link between beverage category selection and weight change over a very short period. After accounting for other weight modulatory factors, higher water and diet beverage intake were associated with less risk of weight gain over four weeks. These preliminary results suggest that future investigations should be specifically designed to evaluate the effect of beverage choice on weight change over short periods of time.

Support or Funding Information

Funding for data collection provided by Danone Research, Palaiseau Cedex, France