Sugar is one of the ingredients that make parents cringe. A small slice of a birthday cake can turn a child into a wonder tornado the entire afternoon. Most parents tend to eliminate sugar in their child's diet. The question, however, does it really cause hyperactivity.
While most parents and health experts believed that sugar rush is something real, it is still an ongoing debate as some would say that it's a myth. David Benton, a professor of Psychology at Swansea University stated that sugar does not increase a child's hyperactivity during a children's party.
"But there is a very clear message that sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children," Benton said on one of his speeches at the Cheltenham Science Festival. "Because the mother anticipated a problem they put their child on a much shorter rein and interpreted behaviour differently and see what they wanted to see. I've done work where we gave glucose to many hundreds of people and I am absolutely confident it doesn't make people feel energetic. It just doesn't I'm afraid."
Though sugar may not be capable in turning your child into a bouncing ball of energy, it can however. affect a child's behaviour. Most health experts eliminated sugar as one of the culprits for children's hyperactive behaviour. Although they did pass the blame on artificial flavouring, coloring and other chemical additives found in sweets according to Refinery 29.
Though it was proven that sugar rush was a myth, it can cause various health complications in the long run. Most health experts protested on giving children food with high sugar content as it can lead to numerous health complications.
"The food industry is overfeeding us with vast amounts of sugar. Why should we ban tobacco while allowing advertising of food that is going to kill people. It's a scandal. We need a tax on soft drinks," Professor Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute, Queen Mary University of London made the statement at the festival citing the need to ban food with high sugar content as it causes obesity. "What we eat is now the biggest cause of death and disability in the world and food industry to blame. Processed food if full of fat and salt and sugar with no feeling of satiation.
