It’s no secret that sugar is one of the leading causes of obesity. But how we consume sugar also matters. Cindy Leung of the University of California, San Francisco says that taking in calories from sugary beverages has a different metabolic response than eating those same calories in food.

"Usually if we were to eat 200 calories of a sugary food, like a piece of cake or a doughnut, our body would tell us that we’re full and we would eat less at the next meal. What we are seeing with sugary beverages is that it is not happening. People drink the soda. It overrides our satiety signals. We don’t register that we’re full. So we end up eating more at the next meal or at the same meal we’re drinking a soda than if we were to eat those same calories from sugar."

Leung says that the rapid influx of carbohydrates from drinking soda can also lead to other diseases.

"Diabetes has been linked with soda consumption, as has coronary heart disease and stroke. So there’s many health outcomes that are linked with soda, not just obesity."