Sugary drinks are more harmful to dental health than solid sugary foods.

Caveats

• A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis directly comparing the two categories found solid sugary snacks posed significantly higher caries risk (3.9x) than sugar-sweetened beverages (1.56x), contradicting the claim's direction.
• The claim conflates two distinct dental harm mechanisms: bacterial caries (where solid foods may be worse) and acid erosion (where drinks may be worse). No high-quality study in the evidence pool confirms drinks cause greater total dental harm across both pathways.
• Many sources cited in support of the claim establish that sugary drinks are harmful in isolation but do not provide head-to-head comparative data against solid sugary foods—a key distinction for evaluating a comparative claim.