Soda Consumption and Water Promotion

1. Define the health behaviors that are the target of change, and discuss the reason for promoting these behavior changes. In the U.S. Americans drink 57 gallons of soda per person, per year. What many people don't know, or pay attention to is what soda actually does to your body and your overall health. When you drink soda, you pancreas rapidly begins to produce insulin to make up for all the sugar you are taking in. In just 20 minutes, you blood sugar spikes and your liver begins to turn the sugar into fat for storage. After about 45 minutes of drinking the soda, the caffeine is completely absorbed in your body which causes a rise in blood pressure and an increase of dopamine. Soda is linked to many health concerns such as obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. According to Harvard researchers, each soda we drink increases our risk of obesity by 1.6 times. Astonishingly, children have an 80% increase of type 2 diabetes if they regularly drink soda. Soda does not have to be eliminated altogether. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans says that high sugar foods or drinks are said to be discretionary calories. Soda is a high sugar drink. They recommend that you do not go above 267 of these calories a day especially if you are eating other foods that are high in sugar. Also, if you are going to be drinking soda, you need to be regularly exercising to level out the amount of calories you consume each day. A can of soda is more than half of this number. An adult woman’s body is made up of 55% of water. Two areas that water improves versus soda is dehydration and weight gain. Soda is high in caffeine which does nothing but dehydrate you, but water keeps your body hydrated. Soda adds on the sugars and calories causing weight gain, but it was noted that switching two 12 oz. cans of soda for two glasses of water, could save you 1960 calories per week. We created a survey and sent it out to the students of Meredith College and collected 84 responses. Approximately 53.57% of students said they drink 1-3 cans of soda a day and 46.34% of students drink 3-5 cups of water a day. Astonishingly, 24.10% of students said they do not exercise regularly.

2. Summarize the main components of the behavior model(s) used to promote this health behavior.
Contemplation
We started our research by sending out a survey to college aged students. This began the process by asking students to evaluate their intake of water and soda each day. This is where students begin to contemplate to change their drinking habits.
Preparation
Students begin to plan to change in this stage of the Trans theoretical model. After really considering how many sodas they drink a day compared to how much water they drink a day, students’ desire to drink less soda and more water will increase.
Action
Adopting new habits
In this stage students begin to put their new habit into place and lower their intake of sugary soda! This soda consumption is replaced by more water, making the student feel and be a healthier person.
Maintenance
Ongoing practice of new, healthier behavior

3. Explain how the educational materials produced as part of this project reflect components of the aforementioned model(s).
The Trans theoretical model best represents the educational materials we are using for decreasing soda consumption in the college population. The first stage of the model is the pre -contemplation where the students do not have any interest in changing their behavior. By handing out flyers with facts about what soda does to our bodies or answering a survey on how much soda they drink. This can spark a jump to the second stage which is contemplation. In this stage students will think about if they want to change their behavior and how they are going to do it. To move to the next stage students may need a little encouragement such as a power point that can show more facts and explain in detail what soda can do to the body. They can have a lot of