[Consumption of fruit juices and beverages by Spanish children and teenagers: health implications of their poor use and abuse]

In the last few decades, the consumption of soft drinks (fruit juices and beverages) in Spain has increased considerably. From 1991 to 2001, consumption of soft drinks increased by 41.5 %, that of extract-based drinks by 62.1 % and that of juices by 26.7 %. Consumption increases with age, with teenagers drinking twice as much (740 ml/day) as pre-school children (388 ml/day).High consumption of soft drinks may lead to underconsumption of foods and drinks of high nutritional quality, such as milk. Multiple studies relate this phenomenon with the risk of growth retardation, failure of non-organic growth, diarrhea produced by alterations in carbohydrate absorption, allergy, pharmacological interactions, obesity, atherothrombotic lipidic profile, alterations in glucose and bone mineral metabolism and negative effects on dental health.Because excessive consumption of soft drinks favors a diet of low nutritional quality, intervention and prevention strategies should be established to promote water and milk as the basic drink in children's and teenagers' diets while soft-drinks should be consumed only occasionally.