The everyday drink that can make you eat more

Every day drinks may be linked to overeating, new research has found. Photo: Getty

Caffeine addicts can't function without coffee. Diet soda drinkers love their diet soda. Wine buffs sip a glass of red every night.

But we may need to take a hard look at our go-to beverages: A new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics finds that our favourite drinks may make us consume more kilojoules over the course of the day.

Researchers examined the eating and drinking habits of more than 20,000 Americans to find that alcohol, coffee, tea, sugar-sweetened beverages, and diet beverages are all linked to some degree of overeating.

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Booze came in first place, shown to make people eat a whopping extra 1612 kilojoules per day on average, beating out sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, which made people consume an average of 950 kilojoules daily. But more surprisingly, the researchers found that coffee can make you overeat 453 more kilojoules, while diet drinks boost your daily intake by 290.

Even tea - reportedly one of the healthiest beverages you can drink - was still linked with downing 268 extra kilojoules per day. And we're not talking about extra kilojoules from add-ins like cocktail mixers or cream and sugar—these extra kilojoules all came from food.

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Then there are the diet drinks. Researchers suspect these no-kilojoule beverages may not totally satisfy drinkers, causing them to eat more. "Another possible reason is that they may feel less guilty and more justified to eat additional kilojoules later," says study author Ruopeng An, of the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

So what about coffee, tea, and sugar-sweetened beverages? Is there some chemical reaction going on inside our brains or guts that's triggering us to chow down? Perhaps, An says, but there's probably a more powerful overeating demon to blame: Habit.

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"It's likely that people are not consuming these beverages alone," he says. And the types of foods we typically pair with these drinks aren't healthy: Coffee with a coffee-shop baked goodie, tea with biscuits or scones, soda with a burger and fries. An believes these ingrained pairings could be the determining factor in how much a particular drink makes us overeat.

But this doesn't mean you shouldn't stop drinking coffee or tea - both are shown to be healthy beverages. Instead, An suggests taking a step back and looking at your food intake while drinking your favourite beverages. If you find your afternoon coffee break doesn't feel complete without a cookie, you've got a habit to break. And though it may die hard, it's definitely not unbeatable.