Sugary beverages have been correlated with obesity and weight gain in multiple other studies, however. One thing that’s interesting having read a few of these is that there are often contradictory results when doing meta-analysis of multiple studies.

Having empathy on a subject is definitely important. But it’s also important not to take an argument personally and not let personal anecdotes influence you more than they warrant. We’re not really talking about every poor person here and we’re not talking about your childhood friends. We’re mostly talking in generalizations about broad demographic trends.

Random study on obesity’s correlation with sugary drinks: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862465/