If you let your kids drink Red Bull or Gatorade, perhaps you need to think it over. These sports drinks can utterly be detrimental to their health. Though sports drinks are sold as the healthy alternative to soft drinks, but they can definitely harmful just like their sugary counterparts.
According to a study, there is a high proportion of twelve to fourteen-year-olds who are frequently consuming popular sports drinks socially as cited on Parenting. This sports drinks consumption increases the risk of obesity as well as tooth erosion. Published in the British Dental Journal, the said research was conducted by the Cardiff University School of Dentistry.
According to the President of the University's Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine, Dr Paul D Jackson, a number of parents have failed to grasp that sports drinks are never intended for children consumption, not to mention the 'social' way 50% of children drink them. "The proportion of children in this study who consume high carbohydrate drinks, which are designed for sport, in a recreational non-sporting context is of concern," Jackson explained.
Dr Jackson asserted that sports drinks are only intended for athletes who are performing intense sporting events. It was also found out that tooth decay in athletes is caused by too much consumption of soft drinks. Instead of sports drinks, "Water or milk is sufficient enough to hydrate active children, high sugar sports drinks are unnecessary for children and most adults," Dr Jackson said in a statement.
British Dental Association's Health and Science Committee's chair, Russ Ladwa, said that it is really alarming seeing so many children consuming sports drinks. Ladwa said that marketing sports drinks to young people is nothing short of negligent as cited on WomensWeekly.
For Ladwa such drinks are hardly a healthy choice for kids, and marketing sports drinks to the general population, especially to children, shows gross irresponsibility. "Elite athletes might have reason to use them, but for almost everyone else they represent a real risk to both their oral and their general health," he said.
