A public health ad campaign aimed at helping teenagers cut sugary drinks from their diets is working, the state Department of Health says.
The Rethink Your Drink media campaign reached 54 percent of teens statewide through public service announcements, advertising in malls and movie theaters and on social media networks during three months earlier this year.
Of those teens, 60 percent said they are drinking fewer sugary drinks as a result of the ads, state Health Director Loretta Fuddy said at a news conference Wednesday.
The state is relaunching the campaign this month through January in hopes of reaching 100 percent of teenagers in the islands, Fuddy said.
"The reason that this is so important is because teens consume the largest amount of sugary beverages, so it’s an appropriate group to address the message to," she said. "And overconsumption of sugary beverages … leads to obesity, and we do have a problem with obesity in Hawaii — about one-fourth of our teens are either overweight or obese."
Among older residents, about 1 in 4 adults in Hawaii is obese.
Fuddy said about $470 million a year is spent on obesity-related medical costs in Hawaii and another $770 million on diabetes-related medical costs.
"That’s why we need to address it from a public health perspective," she said.
The University of Hawaii’s Office of Public Health Studies conducted a phone survey of teens to determine the effectiveness of the campaign and found:
» 46 percent of teens drink sugary beverages — soda, sweetened juices, coffees or teas, energy drinks — one or more times a day.
» 96 percent of teens drink sugary beverages at least once a week.
» Teens drink an average of 8.6 cans, glasses or bottles of sugary drinks per week.
» Three out of five teens buy at least one sugary drink for themselves a week.
Sweetened drinks are already banned from vending machines at public schools.
The campaign will continue to use TV, radio and print ads produced with the help of middle and high school students. Several of the print ads depict young people drinking orange-colored globs of "fat" from soda and sports drink bottles with the message: "Don’t drink yourself fat. Choose water instead."
Island Pacific Academy junior Tullie St. John, whose class acted as youth advisers for the campaign, said the ads were designed to have a shock factor.
"It looks much more like you’re drinking fat or a solid than a beverage because … fat and lard in physical appearance is much more shocking and unappealing to the eye," St. John said.
He said the ads tried to convey "that what you’re doing is the equivalent of drinking fat."
Health officials said the 8.6 servings of sugary drinks that teens consume on average each week amounts to 1,300 extra calories with no nutritional value. That breaks down to 86 teaspoons of sugar a week, or 40 pounds of sugar a year.
"Translated in a year, that would equal 10 pounds of fat," said Lola Irvin, who heads the Health Department’s Healthy Hawaii Initiative.
The first run of the campaign cost about $300,000, using money from the state’s tobacco settlement special fund. "It’s a really good investment of our dollars when you think of the reach that we had," Fuddy said.
