Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I think these survey things are interesting because they can be so misleading.
I too drink Diet Coke because I prefer the taste, but I think that is an aquired taste. I initially started drinking it (ok Tab actually) in college because I was cruising through softdrinks at a high rate and concerned about the calories of coke. So I actually started drinking it because I was concerned about weight. I imagine that a large percentage of people who drink it are (or at least were initially) conscious about weight. Meaning they were worried about gaining. We already know most people in this country are overweight - so I guess on average who is drinking regular coke anymore? Kids who probably did not get included in this study and even if they did their metabolism rate is so much different than adults it would skew the data, or maybe people who have a high calorie burn (real distance runners) who don't care about the caloric intake, or maybe skinny people who never needed to worry about weight gain, and lastly big fat people already who don't care about consuming additional calories (this group is interesting becuase if the weight gain calc was on a percentage of weight then a 350lb guy putting on a few pounds every year might not show up in the data) Also what about the people who were drinking coke, then realized they had a weight gain problem and switched to diet coke midstream. What camp do they fall into?
I think that is the current nature of our culture. Take a complicated, intricate problem and find some super simplistic test and then draw a bunch of lame ass conclusions.