Here's another surprising stat: Americans get 21 percent of their daily calories from those damaging drinks, according to an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 

If you've got a soda habit, you might be tempted to switch to diet instead to skip all those calories. But diet soda is hardly a healthy drink alternative to soda. Studies have found the artificial sweeteners used can have some nasty side effects and can trigger weight gain. 

When your body expects something sweet, it prepares itself for a calorie rush. When you give it something with no calories instead, you're left with a craving for more sweet stuff, which leads to overconsumption in other areas of your diet, reports MSN Healthy Living, citing research studies from the University of Texas Health Science Center and Purdue University. 

MSN Healthy Living also cites a Harvard Medical School study that found a link between diet soda and kidney disease. Women who drank only two diet sodas a day during the 11-year study doubled their risk of declined kidney function. Scary stuff for something that's supposed to be a healthier drink alternative to soda! 

Diet soda drinkers also have much higher rates of tooth decay. Diet drinks tend to be more acidic, wearing away tooth enamel faster. If you want to live healthier by drinking smarter, diet soda isn't exactly the way to go.