If you have recently cut back on soda or eliminated it from your diet entirely, congratulations! You deserve to be proud. Sales of carbonated soft drinks have dropped for the 11th consecutive year in the U.S. This is great news!
The message is spreading that soda is a health disaster, and increasing numbers of Americans are ditching it in favor of their health. This is one more example that we're winning the war against the junk food and beverage industries.
Better still, the rate of decline is increasing. Carbonated soft drink sales declined by 1.2 percent in 2015, as measured by total volume, which is a greater decline than the 0.9 percent drop in 2014.
Soda Consumption at Its Lowest Rate Since 1985
Annual per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks in 2015 was 650 8-ounce servings, the lowest rate since 1985.1
PepsiCo had the steepest decline — a 3.1 percent volume loss — and their Diet Pepsi product was particularly hard hit with a nearly 6 percent drop. Coke wasn't hit as hard — it had a 1 percent loss. Diet Coke faced similar losses as Diet Pepsi with a 5.6 percent drop.
Diet soda is falling out of favor due to the growing unpopularity of artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose (Splenda).
PepsiCo even replaced the aspartame in Diet Pepsi with Splenda in 2015 in an effort to win back customers who've become wary of aspartame's health effects — but it clearly didn't work.
Coca-Cola has also been trying to stave off further slumps in sales. In 2013, the company rolled out an ad campaign encouraging people to unite in the fight against obesity, but the campaign backfired.2
The ads drew fire from consumers, consumer advocates, and obesity experts, and many saw the campaign as little more than an effort in damage control, considering the overwhelming evidence linking soda consumption to obesity.
Coca-Cola Tries to Convince Americans to Drink Diet Soda
Soon thereafter, Coca-Cola launched another ad campaign, this time assuring the public that diet beverages containing the artificial sweetener aspartame are a safe alternative to regular soda.
They even released an industry-funded study that claimed diet soda drinkers lose weight faster than those who don't drink any soda. That study was also heavily criticized.
Purdue University researcher Susie Swithers, Ph.D., whose own research showed that diet drinks promote heart problems and animals fed artificial sweeteners develop a disrupted metabolic response to real sugar, called the study "fatally flawed."3
For more on the detrimental effects of diet sodas, including in relation to weight gain, check out our infographic below.