It's a lot of sugar. Imagine a kid drinks one small (0.33L) can of soda, every day, all year round. A regular Cola/Fanta/Sprite/etc. usually has around 10 gra

It's a lot of sugar. Imagine a kid drinks one small (0.33L) can of soda, every day, all year round. A regular Cola/Fanta/Sprite/etc. usually has around 10 grams of sugar, so 33 grams of sugar for every can. One gram of sugar is roughly equivalent to one gram of carbohydrates, which has 4 kcal of energy pr. gram. A small can comes to 132 kcal. Consuming that every day of the year, comes to around 48000 kcal of excess energy (12 kg of sugar!). One kg of bodyfat is roughly equivalent to 7700 kcal. If this kid lives a very sedentary lifestyle, so that every can that's consumed is excess calories, the worst case would be 5-6 kg of extra bodyfat in year. Luckily it is more complex than that, and the weight gain would likely be much less. But still, over the years a habit like that could easily lead to many kg of extra bodyfat. Now if you go for a lighter alternative, like those drinks that mix sugars and sweeteners, that could cut down sugar intake by half (to a quarter). Or diet soda, which is close to zero calories. The best would of course to teach your kid to exclusively drink water when they're thirsty, and keep the soda as a weekend treat. Bad habits die hard.