School-going children have been discouraged from consuming energy drinks which are readily available and affordable in the United States. Children should not have high amounts of caffeine, which can affect their nervous systems and create heart rhythm problems that are costly to treat. These risks are high for children already taking regular doses of medicine - one study indicated that these children also face a high risk of obesity, which significantly reduces their mortality rate (Ludwig et al. ,2001). In a set of approximately 550 children who were from ethnically diverse backgrounds, the likelihood of experiencing poor health increased with consumption of energy drinks because some of the ingredients in these beverages can cause seizures and other unexpected complications to the liver and stomach.
Energy drinks are addictive for adults, adolescents and children but the long-lasting outcomes of overconsumption of energy drinks are more severe for youngsters under the age of about ten years. Too much sugar has been directly identified as a cause of teeth problems such as cavities and increased weight for both boys and girls. The nutritional benefits associated with consuming the sugary beverages are few and short-lived (Hamack et al. ,1999). For example, the energy boosts that caffeine provides for teenagers last only a few hours before another dose of sugar and caffeine is needed to support the often energy-intensive activities that those in the 10-15 age bracket carry out.
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Policies that limit energy drink consumption among children and create awareness among parents and caregivers on the negative implications of carbonated beverages need to be devised (James et al. 2004). The information provided to the public will play a part in the reduction of the health bill attributable to preventable infections and conditions such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. If energy drinks are found to contribute to the same, they should be treated as non-promoters of health. It is said, and numerous works cited, that soft drinks are especially dangerous to consumers of alcohol in their later years. To counter the trend of increased morbidity, children should be discouraged from taking strength revitalizers and potentially save lives.
References
Harnack, L., Stang, J., & Story, M. (1999). Soft drink consumption among US children and adolescents: nutritional consequences. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 99(4), 436-441.
James, J., Thomas, P., Cavan, D., & Kerr, D. (2004). Preventing childhood obesity by reducing consumption of carbonated drinks: cluster randomised controlled trial. Bmj, 328(7450), 1237.
Ludwig, D. S., Peterson, K. E., & Gortmaker, S. L. (2001). Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis. The Lancet, 357(9255), 505-508.
