Does Sugar Make Children "Hyper"?
I have worked with children of all ages and it always seems that when they are given sweets, they become hyper and hard to handle. So my question for this weeks blog is "Does Sugar Make Children'Hyper'?" I was sooo SUPRISED to see that scientifically, there is no link to show that sugar causes children to become hyperactive.
According to Dr Kleinman, Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, "There are no studies to show that sugar in the commonly eaten foods makes children overly active or causes them to be hyperactive and have attention deficit."
In all the studies that have been done over the years, some kids were given sugar, and some were given sugar substitutes. The results have shown that if you have somebody watching the children and they don't know which child was given the sugar or the substitute, they can't tell which child had the sugar or the non sugar.
Therefore, as Dr Kleinman sees it, sugar's not the culprit — the child's environment is.
"Let me explain this a little bit. You bring a child to church and most children are going to sit there quietly and not be terribly active. You bring them out to a playground and they're going to be running all over the place. The setting makes a difference. There's no relationship between eating that food and being normally active," she says.
So, sugar and excess activity may appear to be linked because sugar is often consumed at events like birthday parties or other social events which tend to produce excitement and greater activity levels even in the absence of sweets.
In all the studies that have been done over the years, some kids were given sugar, and some were given sugar substitutes. The results have shown that if you have somebody watching the children and they don't know which child was given the sugar or the substitute, they can't tell which child had the sugar or the non sugar.
Therefore, as Dr Kleinman sees it, sugar's not the culprit — the child's environment is.
"Let me explain this a little bit. You bring a child to church and most children are going to sit there quietly and not be terribly active. You bring them out to a playground and they're going to be running all over the place. The setting makes a difference. There's no relationship between eating that food and being normally active," she says.
So, sugar and excess activity may appear to be linked because sugar is often consumed at events like birthday parties or other social events which tend to produce excitement and greater activity levels even in the absence of sweets.
So I guess that bottomline is that sweets do not make children hyper, but still limit the amount. A normal child is supposed to get 4-5 teaspoons of sugar a day, but most consume up to 25 teaspoons a day!
