I once made fun of a friend for drinking a "diet" soft drink. Turns out he was diabetic and couldn't drink regular ones. I stopped making fun of people drinking diet soft drinks after that.
I was not making fun about people drinking soft drinks.
My point is that sweet drinks are unhealthy, no matter witch kind of sweetener they use. For me, the fact that there's people that ONLY drink soft-drinks (including fruit juices) is quite shocking.
But anyway, seeing the amount of downvotes I got, I guess I touched some kind if american social tabu.
I agree though that water is the best :-)