It goes by many names — soda, pop or plain old Coke.

But, some nutrition experts have just one label for the carbonated beverages of which an average American drinks more of a gallon a week: unhealthy. They paint the fizzy, sweet liquid as the leading culprit in the nation’s obesity epidemic.

In fact, www.calorieking.com shows that your favorite 12-ounce can of soda carries more calories than a small order of Burger King onion rings.

The 40-ounce Big Gulp at your local convenience store has more calories than a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. Drink a 12-ounce before or after that Big Gulp on any given day and you’re ingesting more calories than what you’d eat in a Big Mac.

If that weren’t enough, a 32-ounce soda carries about the same amount of calories as a medium order of french fries at most fast-food restaurants.

None of these comparisons factor in refills at your favorite fast food restaurant’s soda fountain, by your waiter or the multiple visits to the vending machine at work. Combine those total calories with the rest of the food you eat throughout the day and the number can be scary.

“A lot of people drink (soda), not thinking it has calories like food does,” said Edinburg dietician Patricia Lopez, who says people’s weight gain is often largely due to soft-drink calories.“I think they don’t realize how bad it is until somebody explains it to them.”

Calories vs. toxins

A University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill study shows that from 1977 to 2001 Americans nearly tripled the amount of calories they ingest each day from soft drinks, to 144 calories a day.

Some call the trend America’s “other” drinking problem because of the negative health effects associated with weight gain the excessive consumption causes, from increased risk of high blood pressure to diabetes and heart disease.

The prevalence of obesity has more than doubled over the last 30 years to nearly a third of the country’s population, and the obesity rates in young children and teenagers has increased at an even greater rate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A state study released earlier this year found that the Rio Grande Valley is tagged with the highest obesity rate of any part of Texas, at 37.4 percent of adults. A University of Texas - Austin study conducted from 2004 to 2005 found 42 percent of the state’s fourth graders were overweight or at-risk of being overweight.

“I think most of my patients realize (drinking sodas) is not the healthiest thing to do, but they don’t realize how unhealthy it is,” Lopez said.

Since caffeine is a diuretic that causes increased urination, those drinkers become thirsty more quickly and grab yet another soda, said Elisa Herrera, a dietician with Rio Grande Regional Hospital.

Even though large servings of soda can have as many calories as a meal, they don’t leave drinkers feeling satisfied since they generally lack fat like a burger or french fries do. Fat is what provides that full feeling, Herrera said.

Lopez tells her clients they should switch from sugary, calorie-rich soda to the diet versions, and even then they shouldn’t have more than one a day.

While diet sodas are a better alternative than full-calorie versions, and there isn’t direct evidence that diet drinks have adverse health effects, artificial sweeteners are considered toxins to the body, Herrera said.

And, ironically enough, a 2005 study from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio found the more diet sodas a person drinks, the greater the chance he will become overweight or obese.

While the researchers say it doesn’t necessarily mean diet soda consumption causes weight gain, and researchers haven’t identified a clear reason for the link, it could be because people who switch to diet soda are already on the path to weight gain, or it may be because they seek the nourishment diet drinks lack from unhealthy foods.

Starting at a young age

The trend of soda consumption is especially startling in children, experts say, as they form life-long eating habits at a young age.

A 2003 Louisiana State University study found school children averaged twice as much soda consumption in 1994-1998 than in 1977-1978. According to the UNC study, in 1977-1978 children consumed 13.2 percent of their daily calories from milk, and just 3 percent from soft drinks. By 1999-2001, soft drink consumption in children had more than doubled, while milk consumption fell more than a third.

The trend is troubling, since milk contains nutrients such as calcium, riboflavin and vitamin A that children don’t get from soft drinks, said Margaret Briley, a professor of nutritional sciences at University of Texas - Austin.

“The people who influence those habits are parents,” Briley said. “What they’re buying is a low-nutrient, high-energy product: soda … We need tough love on this situation. Basically, the child’s got to learn this is not the best thing for me.”

While the bad is news is that high soda consumption can cause weight gain, there is hope.

Sometimes, people can lose weight simply by cutting soda out of their diets, Lopez said. And Herrera said it’s easier to get children to change their habits than adults.

McAllen resident Miguel Flores said as a child he loved soda.

“When I was little, I’d slam that stuff — Mountain Dew,” Flores said.

But soft drinks gave him acid reflux and he’s worried about the artificial sweeteners in diet soda. Now, he opts for tea.

Imelda Palacios, director of PSJA’s child nutrition program, said students aren’t allowed to bring carbonated beverages into the schools’ eating areas as a condition of the district’s participation in the National School Lunch Program.

Even so, the American Beverage Association, a trade association for America’s non-alcoholic beverage industry,asserts that soft drinks “can be part of a balanced, healthy lifestyle,” and that it’s not feasible to blame any one food or beverage on obesity, as the condition is affected by diet, exercise and genetics.

While some nutritionists theorize that high fructose corn syrup — a sugar substitute used in many soft-drinks — is a principal culprit of weight-gain associated with beverages, the ABA maintains the product does not uniquely contribute to obesity. And the American Dietetic Association says there is insufficient evidence of the theory.

Regardless of the corn syrup debate, nutrition experts say calorie-filled soft drinks should be avoided.

“They have no nutritional value at all,” Palacios said of soda and other sugary drinks. “We’re just trying to encourage kids to be healthy.”

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Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.