Sugar-sweetened drinks can add variety to your diet when consumed from time to time. The Australian Dietary Guidelines indicate the place different types of drinks have in your diet. They recommend that you consume some drinks daily, such as plain tap water and bottled water, and others, such as sugar-sweetened drinks, you should limit.
In order to have a balanced diet, we need to be mindful about all food and drink we consume, including sugar-sweetened drinks.
Sugar-sweetened drinks are drinks that contain added sugar. These include soft drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, cordial, flavoured waters, and iced tea.
Sugar-sweetened drinks are classed as a ‘discretionary or treat food'. According to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, these should be consumed only sometimes, and in small amounts.
Some sugar-sweetened drinks contain a combination of naturally occurring and added sugars. For example, fruit drinks contain sugars that naturally occur in the fruit, as well as sugars that have been added. 'Sugars' in this case is the total sugar content of the beverage. Check the ingredients list to find the source of any sugars.
If you want to choose a drink with naturally occurring sugar, look for the ingredient list on the back of pack to see if sugar is present.
All types of sugar added to drinks by the manufacturer - including sugar, honey and syrups.
The amount of all naturally occurring sugars (such as sugar from fruit juice or milk) plus added sugars by the manufacturer.
Health advice tells us we should be mindful and limit our intake of ‘discretionary foods and drinks’ containing added sugars. These include confectionary, chocolate, sweet biscuits, cakes, pastries, and sugar-sweetened drinks. Consider your choices in the light of a healthy, balanced diet and active lifestyle.
The World Health Organisation recommends reducing the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total daily kilojoule intake, which is approximately 50g of sugar for the typical healthy weight adult.
Over the past two decades, Australians have changed their consumption habits by consuming less sugar from drinks, reducing their portion sizes, or opting for low- and no-sugar drinks. That led to a sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption decline of 54% over 15 years.2 3 Additional research indicates a further decline in sugar sweetened drinks since 2012⁴, however, obesity rates have continued to increase indicating that obesity is complex and multifactorial and not simply related to consumption of non-alcoholic drinks.
The latest health survey showed that Australians consumed just over one-third of the total kilojoules (energy) from 'discretionary’ beverage choices, with soft drinks providing 4% of these discretionary kilojoules, and less than 2% of the total daily intake of kilojoules for Australian adults.⁵
The Sugar Reduction Pledge, announced in 2018, has seen a 16% reduction in sugar across a range of drinks sold in Australia, with pledgees committing to reducing sugar across their drinks portfolios by 25% by the end of 2025.
A reduction of sugar in drinks is being achieved by reformulating existing regular-sugar recipes, introducing new low- and no-sugar varieties, providing more smaller pack sizes, and more advertising of low- and no-sugar varieties.
The drinks industry believes consumers have the right to choose what they drink to suit their dietary needs. Low-sugar or no-sugar options can also be part of your own sugar-reduction strategy.
