"There is no denying that sugar-loaded soft drinks are having a negative impact on health," says lead researcher Dr. Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in an interview with Reuters Health.

The American Journal of Public Health reported that a "study of 91,000 women followed for 8 years provides one of the most striking links between soft drinks and health outcomes."

Women who drank one or more sodas per day were two times as likely to develop diabetes, compared to those who imbibed less than one per month. And these pop beverages also contribute a lot to the obesity epidemic.

Diet (sugar-free) soft drinks, in these studies, did not increase the risk, "suggesting that the risk was specific to sugar-sweetened soft drinks."

Clinical investigators, physicians, and other health authorities around the world, in general, favor banning soft drinks in schools.

Since the Philippines has a very high incidence of diabetes (and obesity is also creeping up fast), it behooves our government, medical societies, leaders in education, and the public in general, to seriously and urgently join this global trend to protect our children by banning soft drinks in schools.

I would like to suggest that we, parents, go one step further in preventing the epidemic of obesity and diabetes among our children by "banning" all soft drinks at home also, and encouraging the entire household to drink refreshing filtered water instead, which is a much healthier, and an even cheaper, alternative.

The rapid growth in the incidence of obesity and diabetes mellitus is a metabolic time bomb that is starting to explode, brought on by, among others, sugar-loaded drinks and the "super-sizing" (of fast food items like hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, etc) in many countries in the world, especially America, where 90 percent of Type II diabetics are overweight. Actually, 2 out of 3 (66.6 percent) adult Americans, and 15percent of the children, are overweight. In the United States alone, there are about 17 million diabetics (of the 293,655,405 Americans) and about 1800 new cases are diagnosed each year. Five to 10 percent have Type I (juvenile), and the rest, Type II (adult onset) diabetes.

In the Philippines, there are more than 5.07 million of the 86,241,697 Filipinos who suffer from Type II Diabetes Mellitus. In China, 76.4 million of its 1.2 billion population has diabetes, and in Japan, 7.4 million of its 127,333,002 people are diabetics.

Before insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, type I diabetes had 100percent mortality. In the past 10 years, there has been a 33 percent increased in the number of diabetic patients. It is indeed scary.

The other grim statistics that confirm the development of a diabetic epidemic include the following:

1. An infant born in the USA in year 2000 has 1 in 3 chances (33 percent) to get the disease.

2. Shortening the life span by 10-15 years, diabetes is now the 6th leading cause of death, killing 210,000 people a year in the United States alone.

3. Diabetes is also the major cause of heart and kidney diseases, leg amputation and blindness.

4. The incidence of clinical depression is 3 times more among diabetics.

5. An additional 16 million Americans are in a "pre-diabetic" stage;

6. By year 2050, about 29 million Americans will be diagnosed with diabetes.

7. The United States is spending $132 billion a year in direct healthcare cost and in lost of productivity.

8. Worldwide, there are about 150 million Type II diabetics and 18 million Type I.

Less than a century ago, diabetes was a disease of old people. Today, physicians are seeing patients as young as 4 with diabetes. Over-eating and obesity are blamed for the rising number of cases of adult-onset diabetes in general, worldwide. Indeed, Type II diabetes is, to a great extent, a preventable disease.

Relevant, and as important, is the quality of food served in school cafeterias, and what we feed our children at home. Besides the sugar (carbo) super-loaded soft drinks, the inordinate amount of carbohydrate (white rice, flour bread and cakes, desserts, etc) and fats (read meats, eggs, dairies) we eat at home or at fast food chains, hamburger and barbeque stands, are adversely affecting our health and increasing our risks for the development of obesity, diabetes, other metabolic illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and even cancers (breast, colon, pancreas, prostate, etc). An unhealthy diet also depresses the immune system and increases the chances for smokers to develop lung cancer.

The million-dollar question is, with all these scientific data and evidence we have today, are we willing to discipline ourselves, do some sacrifices, control our appetite and weight through healthy lifestyle changes, including daily exercises, to prevent the onset of these terrible, debilitating, and deadly, diseases?

The future of our innocent children rests squarely on our shoulders. As parents, we have the duty and obligation to protect them. This is where saying the difficult "N" word ("No") to our kids, when and where appropriate, will clearly demonstrate our wisdom and our genuine love for them.