Good, old H2O can float your boat a little bit better then soda or juice as far as your health is concerned today.

“There’s a lot of concern at the amount of soda that students are drinking; there are alternatives, one of the main alternatives that’s always strongly suggested, sometimes people will think of juice as an alternative because it’s healthier because it’s juice, well if you look at soda and juice they both have a lot of sugar in them,” Debbie Conover, Coordinator of Student Health Services, said.

Recently, a national survey out of Penn State was conducted in which researched was done on college students and how many soft drinks they are consuming, Conover said.

“They were talking about, at Penn State, that their students were approximately consuming 250,000 gallons of soft drinks from the fountain and on the campus alone; at El Camino, I don’t know the specific numbers but this will kind of give us a general number,” Conover said.

As far as drinking soda is concerned here at El Camino, students are drinking too much soda, Thomas Hicks, contemporary health instructor, said.

They can be found drinking them in the classroom as well as walking on campus, so my guess is that they are drinking to many sodas; quite possibly drinking one, two or three a day, Hicks said.

“Students seem to drink a lot of sodas; one, quite often because it’s cheap, they go to maybe fast food or vending machines and actually, the study out of Penn State actually

is in fact concerned about the students drinking so much soda and concerned about some of the things that should be on the labels for soda is things regarding obesity and the negative effects of consumption; the amount students drink,” Conover said.

Finishing too many sodas can lead to osteoporosis and bone fracture, Conover said.

“Quite often with people who drink too much soda, they’re starting to get GI distress; they don’t know it’s form the soda,” Conover said.

It’s also good to keep in the back of your mind that the caffeine in soda increases the stomach acid as well, Conover said.

“The other thing with sodas is that dentists are reporting an increase of rotten teeth because the sodas are eroding peoples teeth,” Conover said.

A lot of sugar can also be found in fruit juices and have been very detrimental to teeth of test animals as compared to that of soda because there is so much sugar in fruit juices, Conover said.

“I have a lot more energy when I drink water as opposed to soda and I am not a huge juice person because they are really too sweet,” Jennifer Moran, 18, biology, said.

“A lot of people prefer soda over water which is pretty sad; you think it’s going to quench your thirst but it really even makes you more thirsty because sugar soaks up all your goodness inside and your juice,” Koby Krikac, 17, Liberal Studies, said.

“I think it’s more of a personal choice that we have to decide ourselves to drink more water, even though soda is probably more cheaper,” Moran said.

Soda is the easy choice, soda and juices have much more flavor so people are more drawn to them as opposed to water but they should be drinking water, Moran said.