By CBC News

Even children who eat their fruits and veggies and are physically active may be drinking too many sugary beverages that they mistakenly perceive as healthy, a U.S. study suggests.

The study in the October issue of the journal Pediatrics surveyed more than 15,000 children in Grades 8 to 11 in Texas about diet, exercise and couch-potato habits.

"Children who chose a healthy lifestyle like eating lots of vegetables, drinking their milk and engaging in physical activity nevertheless tend to consume a lot of flavoured and sweetened beverages, possibly because they believe that these beverages are healthy for them," said the study's principal investigator, Nalini Ranjit, an assistant professor of behavioural sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Consumption of sodas and non-carbonated flavoured beverages like punch and sports drinks coexisted with healthy dietary and physical activity behaviours, the researchers found. This points to a "popular misperception of these beverages as being consistent with a healthy lifestyle," the study's authors concluded.

In the Pediatrics study, 28 per cent of the children and teens surveyed drank sugar-sweetened beverages three or more times a day. Ranjit identified water as the ideal drink for children.

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