Sugary Drinks in America: Who Drinks Them and Why It Matters

Why they matter

Sugar-sweetened beverages — sugary drinks — are among the leading sources of added sugars in the American diet. Drinking them often is linked to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and cavities, and gout, a type of arthritis. Cutting back helps people keep a healthy weight and diet.

What counts: any drink sweetened with added sugars — table sugar, syrups, honey, or sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juice. Examples include regular soda, fruit drinks, sports and energy drinks, sweetened waters, and coffee and tea drinks with added sugar.

Low- and no-calorie sweeteners may cut calories in the short term and help with weight, but whether they work as a long-term strategy is still an open question.

How much people drink

• Adults: in 2011–2014, 49% drank a sugary drink on a given day, averaging 145 calories from them.
• Youth: in the same years, 63% drank one on a given day.
• Young children: 57.1% of children aged 1 to 5 had at least one sugary drink in the past 7 days (2021).

Share of children aged 1–5 who drank at least one sugar-sweetened beverage in the past week, by state, 2021. CDC figure.

Who drinks the most

• Adults: intake is higher among men, young adults, non-Hispanic Black and Mexican American adults, and adults with low incomes.
• Youth: higher among boys, adolescents, non-Hispanic Black youth, and youth in low-income families.
• Habits: adults and teens who smoke, sleep too little, exercise little, eat fast food often or rarely eat fruit are more likely to drink sugary drinks often; teens who drink a lot of them also have more screen time.
• Where: Americans drink 52% of their sugary-drink calories at home and 48% away from home.

By state

In combined 2010 and 2015 data from the National Health Interview Survey, 63% of adults said they drank sugary drinks once a day or more, ranging by state from 44.5% in Alaska to 76.4% in Hawaii.

Learn more

• Rethink Your Drink — choosing healthier drinks.
• CDC's guide to analyzing the survey's sugary-drink questions.
• CDC research on high school students' beverage trends, 2007–2015, dietary behaviors of high school students, and adult sugary-drink consumption in 18 states.

Sources

Based on "Fast Facts: Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Its stock photograph is not reproduced. The source's youth calorie figure and its regional and metro–rural percentages are left out: they do not agree with the national figures beside them.