[kacesensitive]

It’s heartbreaking, but not surprising. When you’re dealing with limited resources, constant stress, and often living in areas where healthy options are harder to access or more expensive, sugary drinks can feel like an affordable comfort. Instead of judging SNAP recipients, we should be looking at the systems that make soda more accessible than clean, appealing , and fresh food.

[XorNot]

Another take would also just be that it hardly proves they don't drink water, just that they also like something else.

But the "soda" category these days is also pretty overloaded: full sugar coke vs Coke zero is a very different calory intake.

[apothegm]

Coke zero is still murder on your teeth, though. (And not fluoridated, of course.)