Everybody loves to drink soda pop.
  It fizzles and sparkles and tastes sweet--who couldn't love that?  But as popular as soda pop is, do you really know what is contained in soda pop and what it does to you body?  Let's examine of few of the consequences of drinking soda.

• Regular soft drinks contain a lot of sugar.
    In fact, just one regular soda contains more than the FDA recommended allotment of 10 teaspoons of sugar for someone on a 2,000 calorie per day diet.
  Raised sugar levels can cause many health problems including obesity, type-2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
  
• Did you know that the carbonation in sodas contains phosphoric acid which can deplete the calcium in your body?  Calcium is essential to bone mass and bone density.
   
• Caffeine, which is in most soft drinks, can also deplete the calcium in your body as well as stimulate the central nervous system and contribute to stress and insomnia.
  

So, you may ask, why don't I just drink sugar-free soft drinks?  Well, there are a number of reasons that you should avoid the artificially-sweetened drinks--

• Diet soda is usually "sweetened" with aspartame, sucralose or saccharin.
    These artificial sweeteners can pose a threat to your health.
    Saccharin, for instance, has been found to be a carcinogen.
    Aspartame has been linked to obesity because it stimulates the brain to crave for more sweets and carbohydrates.
  
• Studies have found that consuming one or more sodas in a day--whether diet or regular--can led to a 30% chance of weight gain around the belly area.
  

So, there it is.
  Even though we may love the taste of soft drinks, whether they be sweetened naturally or artificially, we really need to avoid them as much as possible.
  Substitutes you can opt for include plain old water and tea (unsweetened, of course).