Hospital Stops Serving Sugar-sweetened Drinks to Patients and Visitors

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With 3 city proposals to reduce resident’s consumption of sugary drinks, sugary drinks have been a hot issue in San Francisco (15.1% Latino) recently.

San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center has announced that it will no longer advertise, sell or provide sugar-sweetened beverages.  This applies to vending machines, gift shops, cafeterias, patient meals and food trucks.  For example, juice in children’s meals must now be 100% fruit juice.

Sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases.  Latino children are disproportionately burdened by advertisements of sugar-sweetened beverages and face disproportionate rates of obesity and diabetes.  13.2% of Latino infants and 47.0% of Latino toddlers were fed sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, compared to non-Latino infants (5.4%) and toddlers (29.5%).  The percentage of Latino children who are overweight or obese between the ages of 2–5 is nearly 30%, compared with only 21% of non-Latino white children.

Removing sugar-sweetened beverages is an important step in reducing sugar consumption and preventing negative health outcomes in Latino children.

Click here to read more about San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center’s ban on sugar-sweetened beverages.