Climate change may be giving us a sweet tooth. New research shows there has been an increase in sugar consumption as temperatures rise. This poses a risk to public health, as people are drawn to low-nutrient soft drinks in an effort to stay cool.
Sugar, we’re going up
Climate change may lead to a “substantial nationwide increase in added sugar consumption” by 2095, said a study published in the journal Nature. This will happen largely in the form of “higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and frozen desserts.”
Researchers analyzed the relationship between weather and consumer purchases and found that “sugar consumption rose as temperatures moved between 54 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit,” said The Associated Press. The consumption diminished at higher temperatures, however, because “appetites began to lessen when it grew warmer than 86 degrees.” The findings showed that there was an increase of added sugar consumption by 0.7 grams per person per day for every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming in U.S. households. While the “daily difference from higher temperatures doesn’t amount to even a single candy bar for the average person,” it “adds up over time and has a big effect.”
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Rising temperatures “do make a difference on what you eat and drink,” said Pan He, a study co-author and senior lecturer in environmental social sciences and sustainability at Cardiff University, to Grist. “We don’t take much of a second thought on what we eat and drink and how that can be responding to climate change, but in fact, this research shows it would.”
Sweet escape
The health implications of sugar consumption have been well-studied: it increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, “if we consider the interaction with climate change, it will make things worse,” He said to CNN. Specifically, “people tend to take in more sweetened beverages as the temperature is getting higher and higher,” Duo Chan, a study co-author and climate scientist at the University of Southampton, said to the AP. “Obviously, under a warming climate, that would cause you to drink more.”
The health consequences will disproportionately impact certain demographics. According to the research, “men consumed more sugary soft drinks,” said the AP. Also, the “amount of added sugar consumed during hot weather was several times higher for low- and very low-income families than for the wealthiest.” Lower-income households are less likely to have access to air conditioning, making them more reliant on sugary drinks to cool down. Outdoor workers and less educated families also showed higher sugar consumption with higher temperatures. There were additionally racial differences, with white people having the highest added sugar effect, while Asian Americans showed no significant change.
“Evidence on how (extreme heat) changes eating patterns is still relatively scarce,’’ said Charlotte Kukowski, a researcher at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab at the University of Cambridge, to CNN. But this study “highlights a less-discussed channel through which climate change can affect human well-being.”
