Drinking just one soda a day equates to consuming 39 pounds of sugar per year, which is one of the main reasons that soda consumption is strongly linked to obesity. A recent Harvard study found that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to more than 180,000 obesity-related deaths each year, which means that about one in every 100 deaths from obesity-related diseases is caused by drinking sugary beverages. An additional Harvard study concluded that regularly consuming drinks high in sugar interacts with the genes that affect weight, dramatically increasing a person’s risk for obesity.