Background/Aims: Reducing the consumption of sweetened beverages is a popular health promotion focus. The aim of this research was to examine the prevalence of consumption, total sugar intake and percent of daily energy from sweetened beverages by sex and age group in New Zealand (NZ).
Methods: The 2008/09 NZ Adult Nutrition Survey was a cross-sectional survey of a national sample (15 yrs +, n=4721). A computer based multiple-pass 24-hour diet recall was used. All foods consumed were coded into main food groups and sub-food groups including beverages.
Results: In total 17.5% reported a sweetened beverage. The most frequently reported (excluding tea or coffee) were soft drinks (7.5%) and fruit juice (3.1%). Males were more likely to report soft drinks compared to females (P < 0.001). Daily energy from soft drinks was highest among those 15 to 18 years (3.6%) and lowest among adults 71 years and over (0.4%). Among consumers the grams of sugar per day from sweetened beverages for young adults (< 30 years) was nearly double that of other age groups.
Conclusions: Sweetened beverage consumption was more prevalent among younger age groups. Reducing sweetened beverage health promotion activities should focus on young adults, particularly males.
Funding source: The NZ Ministry of Health funded the survey, which was undertaken with the University of Otago. The NZ Crown is the owner of the copyright for the data. The results presented in this paper are the work of the authors. The Clique funded the data analyses for this research.