i worked with this lady in a rural community. she was like maybe in her 50s and very kind, but she drank coke like a maniac. like just all day. she said she knew she should drink more water, but didn't like the "taste". it should be noted, much of the drinking water in the region had been contaminated by industry since before she was born, and it had also worked to suppress any government messaging / response about it, so there was just a vague cultural distrust of water by older people. also bottled water was generally more expensive than a soda from the store, and this community was plagued by extreme poverty (if you couldn't guess).

i, by contrast, grew up in the burbs and drank lots of soda because it was all over school, and at the shitty jobs i worked until my mid 20s, basically the only consistent perk was unlimited soda. i quit in my late 20s when i started hanging around people who made healthier choices and started accepting how fucked up it was, nutrition and health wise.