A 20 ounce single soda contains up to 250 calories. That’s an incredible amount of calories for such a small quantity of soda, right? Now how much exercise would it take to burn off those 250 calories? Researchers did the test. You will not believe how much.

Researchers found out that instead of telling people how many calories were contained in their food or beverages, telling them how long it would take to burn those calories would be a better option if the goal was to discourage them from partaking in the beverage.

“People don't really understand what it means to say a typical soda has 250 calories," said Sara Bleich, an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Explaining to them in much more easier to understand language such as how many miles they have to walk to burn the calories would serve better in discouraging the uptake of the soda.

In their study, Bleich and other researchers put up bright signs at the corners of low income predominantly black neighborhoods in New York. The signs read out that a 20 ounce bottle of soda or sports drink contained 250 calories and 16 tablespoons of sugar. It would require 50 minutes to burn off the whole lot of calories or for those who don’t fancy running, a 5 mile walk would do the trick. The researchers recorded that out of 59% of teens who saw the sign, 40% changed their order as a result. The study also found out that before the signs, 98% of beverage purchases at the store were for sugary drinks. After the signs, sugary drinks purchases dropped to 89%.

“This is a very low-cost way to get children old enough to make their own purchases to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages, and they appear to be effective even after [the signs] are removed," Bleich stated.