Over the past 50 years or so, we Americans have developed a severe drinking problem. We stopped making our own iced teas and lemonades (recipe: water, lemon, sugar) and started buying them in bottles or mixes, with ingredients like "high-fructose corn syrup" and "ascorbic acid" on the labels.

We stopped thinking of a soda as a treat - akin to an ice cream or a candy bar - and started seeing it as the equivalent of a glass of water, drinking two, three, four, or more a day.

CLICK HERE to see the healthiest juice drinks for your kids in the "GMA" Takeaway web extra.

Then we stopped drinking water out of the tap and started demanding that it be artificially flavored and put into bottled with the words "vitamin" or "energy" stamped on their labels.

And, in just the last decade or so, many of us stopped brewing our own coffee and started buying things with vaguely European names, like "mocha latte." And the result of all this beverage evolution is that, today, walking into a convenience store or a beverage distributorship has become dangerous to our health. America's supermarket aisles and drive-thru menus are awash in empty liquid calories. We've updated our list of worst offenders. Survive the rising tide by eliminating these, the country's most damaging drinkables, from your beverage regiment.

Need more convincing? A study last year from Johns Hopkins University found that cutting liquid calories has a bigger impact on weight-loss than cutting calories from food! Turns out that losing weight might be as easy as watching what you drink. For more information about diet-destroying drinks, get the latest book in the series: Drink This, Not That!

Worst Smoothie in America

Not That: Smoothie King Peanut Power Plus Grape (Medium, 32 fl oz)

1,124 calories 33 g fat (6 g saturated) 161 g sugar 22.5 g protein

Sugar Equivalent of 15 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.