Is your teen showing early signs of insulin resistance and prediabetes, gaining weight too quickly and is always hungry?
Before you try another diet or cut another food group — you need to hear this.
Teen weight gain is rarely about willpower. During puberty, hormones like insulin, cortisol, and estrogen directly drive how your teen stores fat, feels hungry, and burns energy. If no one has explained that to you yet, this podcast is where that changes.
Lifestyle for Teens with Dr. Jenny is built on one belief: No Diets. No Shame. Just Hormones That Work.
Dr. Jenny Gourgari is a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist and obesity medicine specialist — and she knows this journey personally. She spent her own teenage years struggling with weight and chronic dieting before understanding that hormones, not habits, were driving the cycle. Now she helps parents and teens do what she wished someone had helped her do sooner.
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Use this to start a discussion with your teen about sodas. Hope you find it helpful.
I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach. After helping hundreds of teens struggling with insulin resistance, prediabetes and their hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create healthy habits that actually last.
Here's what makes this different: ✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame. ✅ No more food fights between parents and teens. ✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits ✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight ✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders
Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!
Are you getting frustrated with what to feed a teenager who is always hungry ? Everybody knows that teenagers have a huge appetite . It seems like you need to feed them constantly to satisfy their hunger . It's even more difficult where teenagers who struggle with their weight truly want to make changes like cut down on junk food or stop ever eating , and they can't . There's frustration , isolation , stress , and that's why I decided to create a recipe collection of 30 easy and healthy meals for teenagers . They're all high in protein to satisfy your teenager's hunger and they can all be ready in less than 30 minutes . If you want to grab a free copy , go to lifestellforeteenscom for the last recipes .
Speaker 2
This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast . If you are a mom and want to help your child who is struggling to lose weight , you are in the right place . If you are looking for healthy lifestyle tips , Dr Gorgary is here to help you understand the science around safe weight loss in teens and children , because what works for adult weight loss is not always the best for children . This podcast is for educational purposes only . Dr Gorgary does not provide medical , psychological or nutrition therapy advice . You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems without consulting your own medical practitioner and now your host , Dr Jenny Gorgary .
Speaker 1
Hello everyone , this is Dr Gorgary again . I'm here with you for another episode in this podcast where we are going to discuss beverages and , in particular , beverages that have sugar , and I know a lot of you adolescents love beverages , and not only adolescents everybody , a lot of people love beverages , and when I say sugar , sweet and beverages , I mean that includes everything like soda , juice , sweet tea and other soft drinks poor drinks that we drink and we don't necessarily realize how much sugar those beverages contain . Before I go into the research study for today's episode , I'd like to challenge you with a small , tiny experiment . Sometimes it's easier to get the picture if you actually do the small experiment . So try it and let me know what you learned and how you felt .
Speaker 1
Have you ever drunk water with sugar ? If not , I encourage you to get a glass of water and have the sugar next to it , and I want you to take teaspoons and add 10 teaspoons of sugar in one glass of water . Just do it One , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , ten . Now mix that sugar with the water , mix it well and try to drink that . How does it feel ? You don't have to drink it , just taste it . Does that feel like a lot of sugar to you when you actually put all these 10 teaspoons . Imagine if you actually put 13 teaspoons of sugar . Now why am I asking you that ? That is the amount of sugar that is contained in a regular can of soda of 12 ounces . That's 368 grams . The regular small can of soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar and if we're talking about the bigger bottle , that is , the 16 ounces , that is actually equal to 13 teaspoons of sugar . Did you know that ? And it's different when you think about it and you hear about it than you actually pouring the sugar yourself in the water and actually seeing or showing it to your friends , show it to your kids , show it to your patients . It is a lot of sugar that is contained in soda and other juices that we don't really realize . And you can do the same experiment with other things that kids or adults may consume . You can try and see what is the amount of sugar that they contain and then divide that number by four and that will give you the amount of teaspoons sugar teaspoons that is contained in that beverage . It's really impressive .
Speaker 1
And why did I choose this topic about today ? Because we know that the trends have increased significantly of pediatric obesity and pediatric overweight in the last 30 years and concurrently with this increase in the weight , there is an increase in the consumption of sugar added beverages . So , even though it's not a direct causal effect , there is clearly an association that we have observed and there are also some research studies that have been done and they actually have taken a closer look on trying to see is this really true ? Is there really an association ? And I know that you often hear don't consume sodas and juice , but maybe you have not realized what is the effect and how , whether it is real or not . So I just chose one of the different studies that they have been done and I will have another episode to talk about the diet soda , but for this episode I will focus on the sodas and the juice and all the beverages that in general have sugar in them . We know that in general we should not consume sugar that comes from beverages more than 10% of our total caloric nutrition , but studies have shown that up to it used to be up to 40% of the calories would come from sodas , and now there has been some recent decrease in the amount of calories that come from the juices , but it's still significantly higher than where we would like it to be . So one of these epidemiologic studies that looked at this it was a great study done by Dr Berkley and her group . It was done at Harvard University , and the title of the manuscript , the title of this research , is Sugar-Added Beverages and Adolescent Weight Change . So this study was published in the Journal of Obesity Research in 2004 .
Speaker 1
So what did the researchers do in this particular study ? Well , they wanted to see , as I mentioned , whether there was an association between the consumption of sugar beverages and the increase in the weight and the body mass index , bmi . So the researchers investigated data from 16,771 children . They were living throughout 50 states in the United States and they were children of the Nurses for Health study , which was another epidemiologic study . So that's how they recruited these children . They already had recruited their mothers that they were nurses to participate in this big study , and then they asked their children to participate in this sub portion of this study .
Speaker 1
So what they did is they sent questionnaires to children where they would ask them what is their weight , what is their height , what is their age , whether they're boys or girls , how much exercise they're doing and what kind of beverages they drink and how much do they drink . So they would ask them whether they drink a can , a glass or a bottle or a cup of different types of sodas , apple juice , fruit juice , sweet tea and things like that . So they asked them to do this questionnaire at , let's say , time zero . That was in 1996 , the first report . And then they followed them also for three years and then . So they had data after a year and after the second year and then they asked them how much they weighed it and what was their height and weight , again after some time , so after a year . So they followed them over time and they could see , depending on their consumption of the different consumption of the beverages , how much was the difference in the weight gain that they had after a year . So they first looked at time zero and then they looked after a year . So what did they find ? They found that at time zero , 23% of the boys and 17% of the girls were overweight , meaning their body mass index was more than the 85th percentile . Now if you don't know what the body mass index , I would encourage you to go back to episode one where I go into more details about how to calculate the body mass index . But in general .
Speaker 1
The body mass index is a way that researchers use to evaluate the degree of obesity in a child that is growing , because as children grow , they have naturally more weight . That's not necessarily a bad thing . Actually , children do need to gain weight , otherwise they're not going to grow . So a certain amount of weight gain is needed and required , but when this weight gain is above that expected level . That's why we have to calculate BMI . That gives us the information , because it takes into account not just the height , not just the weight of the child , but also the height of the child . They also found that 7% of the boys and 8% of the girls were lean , so significantly more amount like almost double the amount of overweight , compared to children that they were lean , very lean , meaning that they were less than the 10th percentile . So we also don't want them to be that lean .
When they looked at their time zero right , without looking at the future , let's just say they just looked at the first questionnaire that all the children answered . What they found was that children who drank more milk and less diet soda were leaner , whereas girls who drank more sugar-added beverages were heavier and in fact their body mass index was more than 0.06 higher than girls who were not having sugar-added beverages . Okay , now let's just look what happened over time . So they looked , as I mentioned the data from children that had their height and weight at the beginning , how much sugar beverages they were drinking , and then what happened to the kids' height and weight over time . After a year , how much did they change their weight ? So listen to this .
Speaker 1
This is the most important part of this study . So what they found is that the amount of body mass index after a year was associated with the amount of the daily serving of each beverages . In particular , for boys , the weight gain was significantly associated with their consumption of sodas and other beverages . So they actually , for every one sugar added beverages , they body mass index increased by 0.1 after a year . Those that increase their beverages by two or more servings per day , they gain even more . Their body mass index increased by 0.14 . Similar results were also seen for girls . Girls that increased their intake by one serving per day over the previous years . They had changed their body mass index by 0.65 . Those that they have increased by two or more servings their sodas they increase their body mass index by 0.1 .
Speaker 1
I know you always want to hear and you prefer to hear how much weight is that ? But really it's not a one answer fits all . That's why the body mass index is so much better indication . But if you want to know how much weight gain would that be for you ? What you can do is you can calculate your body mass index right now , see what it is and then add the calculation 0.15 . See what your future BMI would be theoretically after a year and then try to find what your weight gain would be if your height would be the same , which is not going to happen if you're still growing . But if you're not growing anymore , then you have your answer right there .
Speaker 1
This was , as I mentioned , one great study . One of the strengths of the study is that it had crazy high number of participants . This is really one of the biggest , strongest epidemiologic studies that have ever been conducted . There was really more than 10,000 of boys and girls participated in the US growing up study . So the data you get from this because there are so many children that have participated that makes you feel more confident that what the results show are likely to be closer to the truth . And of course , we cannot draw conclusions directly , like we can say it was only because of the soda and the other sugar-sweetened beverages , but it does give you a good reason to believe that this played a big role .
Speaker 1
Another thing to consider is what may change also over time , and the consumption of the juice may also have to do not just with how many times during the day you get soda , but also how much soda , like the portion of the soda , every time that you have the soda . It used to be that when you order a soda in a restaurant , you could get one can , one glass of soda . Nowadays you may order a soda and you get this huge glass that is equivalent of three or four servings . So even though you may say that , oh , I just drink one soda per day , this soda may be equivalent to three or four sodas if it's actually not in a small regular cup , right ? So why is it that consumption of soda beverages leads to more weight gain , like the more sodas you drink , the more weight you're going to gain .
Speaker 1
One obvious reason is because the soda has extra calories . If you didn't drink soda , instead of soda you had water , then you would save so many calories just by giving up the soda . So you always tell my patients and my clients if you want to lose weight , cut down the sodas as a first step . If you are one of these people that have sodas and I know it's not easy to do and there are other ways that people we can talk about other ways that people can make this happen but the point is , if you are able to limit the amount of sodas , it's very likely that you will lose a lot of weight very easily .
Speaker 1
Another suggestion that why the soda leads to weight gain is because when you're drinking a soft drink that has sugar in it , you are still left hungry afterwards . You are still not feeling full because the drink by itself doesn't really give you the same sense of fullness as if you had , let's say , a hamburger or a piece of toast right . So it makes you not only have the calories , but then you also need to eat more to feel satisfied . And then there is another thing that plays a role is that when you consume sugar that comes from any sugar right and I think I have mentioned this before when you consume the beverages , the soda that have sugar , that tends to spike your sugar high . That increases the hormone insulin , right , in order to bring that sugar down , the insulin makes your sugar drop and that drop of sugar makes you feel hungry and then you go and eat more sugar , then you have more insulin , then your sugar drops again , then you feel hungry again . So it's like this roller coaster of more sugar , more insulin , more sugar , more insulin . So it's like a visual cycle that people are going into this and they have the need to constantly drink and eat again and again . So by cutting down sodas , you're also cutting down one extra signal to your body not to release insulin and it's much easier for you not to go into this constant hunger state if you do not have that constant release of insulin .
Speaker 1
Okay , so that was all I had to say today . I hope you enjoyed this podcast . I remind you again of the little experiment . Go and try it . It takes like less than five minutes to do , but it may help you actually see it yourself and feel and realize how much sugar is in really one can of soda . Okay , my friends , take care and I'll be with you again next week .
Speaker 2
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast , I invite you to come check out the Lift program . It's Dr Gorgary's 12-week coaching program for teens and their moms , where we take all this information , we apply it to your daily life and we work together so your teenager learns how to create a healthy lifestyle so they can feel happier , more confident , less stressed and love their body again . Visit the website at lifestyleforteenscom and click on the work with me and free resources to learn more about this program and get free help to start this journey right away . Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode of Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens .
