Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption Among Undergraduate Students in Jakarta

Abstract

"Sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) is one of the sources of added sugar consumption in the diet. Nowadays, SSB consumption trend in adolescent is increasing, and with the high level of consumption of SSB comes an adverse side effect to health of adolescent. The objective of this study is to assess the consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages among undergraduate students aged 17-24 years old by sex, age and days. Data collection was done by using a food diary in order to measure the consumption of SSB with consideration of day-to-day variation: weekday vs. weekend. The study population was 150 undergraduate students in Jakarta, with a range of age 17-24 years old. In this study, sweetened coffee, sweetened tea and Boba drink were identified as a top 3 favorite SSB consumed by >65 adolescents (>45.0%), whereas Thai Milk Tea was identified as the least SSB consumed by the adolescents (11.3%). Male consumed more SSB compared to female respondents. During weekdays, male consumed 128 kilocalories (kcal), whereas female 100 kcal. Moreover, male SSB consumption during the weekend showed a similar trend with the weekdays (135 kcal vs. 114 kcal, respectively). Younger respondents (7.3%) tend to exceed their 200 kcal recommended limit of sugar intake compared to older respondents (5.5%). Similarly, male (9.6%) also tends to exceed their 200kcal limit of added sugar intake compared to female (6.1%). Therefore, there is a high percentage of SSB consumption by the undergraduate students in Jakarta with 80.0% of them consumed at least one SSB on a given day. It is recommended for undergraduate students to reduce their daily SSB intake to lower than 5% of their daily energy intake (100kcal).