Maia Appleby	Approximately 450 words
7851 Sugar Bend Drive	© 2002 Maia Appleby
Orlando, Florida 32819
Are You a Soda Guzzler? by Maia Appleby Soda tastes good. Really, REALLY good, in fact. In this country, we love it, and we’ve made it one of the top-selling items in our grocery stores. As a treat, soda doesn’t do much harm. Twenty years ago, kids only drank about a third as much soda as they drink today.  Now, most families keep soda in the refrigerator all the time, and kids are drinking it like crazy, replacing more nutritious things with soft drinks. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the average American kid drinks about fourteen ounces of milk each day. At the same time, he or she drinks twice as much soda. If this sounds like you, then you should learn about caffeine. Stop rolling your eyes! Caffeine is far from being a kid’s best friend. It’s a drug -- a legal drug that’s not nearly as harmful as other drugs that might come to mind, but it’s still a drug that can cause you a lot of problems. Here are eight good reasons why you should drink less soda: 1. It’s addictive, just like other drugs. Who wants to be addicted to something? 2. It’s REALLY bad for your teeth. Studies in England and Alaska have shown that kids who drink a lot of soft drinks have more cavities than kids who don’t. 3. Caffeine makes your bones weaker by stopping calcium from reaching them, so you could break a bone more easily and develop serious problems with your bones when you’re older. This is why people say it stunts your growth. The stronger your bones are, the straighter and taller you’ll stand. 4. Caffeine can make you feel nervous, fidgety and even grouchy. 5. Drinking soda makes you less thirsty for more healthy things like milk, juice and water, so you won’t get the vitamins you need from those things. 6. Each can of soda contains nine teaspoons of sugar. Each teaspoon has about 16 calories that don’t contain any vitamins or nutrients. It’s no wonder that studies are showing that kids who drink a lot of soda are more likely to be overweight. 7. Caffeine can make you dehydrated, which might give you headaches, stomach aches and sore muscles. 8. Caffeine speeds up your heart, which can be really dangerous if you’re exercising. If you drink soda or a caffeinated sports drink before participating in sports or exercising, you could become weak or dizzy. Were you paying attention? Here’s a quick math quiz, to make sure: If a kid drinks three cans of soda in a day, how many calories is that? If that same kid consumes 1296 calories that day, what fraction of those calories came from soda?