Boy sipping soda and wateriStockphotoFor sheer shark-jumping, fridge-nuking outrageousness, you just can’t beat the American Beverage Association. In a must-read/listen NPR report, the ABA’s senior vice president for science policy, Maureen Storey, made the claim that soda should play a crucial role in children’s hydration needs:

…Children who have been exercising may not drink enough water to get back to the hydration point that they need to be at. So with a little bit of flavoring and a little bit of sweetness, they will drink enough then to get back to where they need to be.

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Are you kidding? Kids don’t drink enough water, so they should drink soda to make sure they don’t get dehydrated?

Have these people no shame?

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Oh, and, by the way, Storey wanted to make sure we realize that soda is positively healthy because it’s 99% water, and water is an important nutrient. Anyone else spot the egregious circular logic at work there?

If only NPR host Michelle Norris had expressed a bit more incredulity. This stuff doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.