Parents - Does candy make your children hyperactive?
I remember reading an article awhile back by the BBC, saying there was very little evidence that sugar or sweets caused children to be hyperactive.
The article mentions a study, which showed how it was parents expectations that their children would act this way rather than as a result of the sugar itself.
An extract from the BBC article:
"The idea that sugar affects behaviour is widely believed and there are various hypotheses that attempt to explain how, including some children might have an allergic response to refined sugar, or have abnormal patterns of blood glucose levels.
But the evidence for a link between sugar consumption and hyperactivity is surprisingly slim"
I found this extremely odd as I have noticed my child becoming hyperactive on numerous occasions and only later I discovered they had been given sugary treats (that's grandparents for you haha)
I found on the National Health Service (NHS) website a section about food colourings that were linked to hyperactivity. It lists the following as examples,
E102 (tartrazine)
E104 (quinoline yellow)
E110 (sunset yellow FCF)
E122 (carmoisine)
E124 (ponceau 4R)
E129 (allura red)
These artificial colours have E numbers attached, which means they have all passed the safety tests and have been approved for use in the European Union (EU).
It's no surprise that the above can be found in soda, sweets, ice cream and cakes.
The NHS site goes on to say:
"If your child is hyperactive, or has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), there's some evidence to suggest that avoiding the six food colours may help"
So this is suggesting if your child does not have ADHD or is not hyperactive then there would be no effect. But personally I can't see how this could be true.
I remember going to a wedding and on each table was a packet of sweets for the children, on the back in bold letters it said "these sweets may cause an adverse reaction in children".
The following is taken from the UK Governments website regarding food labelling.
Why would a company selling sweets targeted at children put this on the back of their product? Surly they must of been made to do this? and if they were then there must be some evidence to support it? (looking at the government guidelines there clearly is evidence).
Parents over to you. Do you think sweets, candy or soda makes your children act more hyper than usual?
Link to BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130722-does-sugar-make-kids-hyperactive
Link to NHS advice: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/food-additive-intolerance/Pages/Introduction.aspx
Link to Government food labels - https://www.gov.uk/food-labelling-and-packaging/food-and-drink-warnings
As usual thanks for listening
Happy Steeming Steemers and Steemettes.
If you like this you may like my other recent posts:
I won't say it makes my kids more hyper, but it will give them more energy. We completely cut out juice or lemonade/Kool-Aid after 6 pm (rarely get soda) and quit giving them dessert unless we ate before 6 because they would stay up super late.
I'll pump my kids up with sugar tomorrow afternoon and check back...
"I'll pump my kids up with sugar tomorrow afternoon and check back..." 😂😂😂😂 What a comment haha. Love it.
we're very cautions with sweets
Yes me too, I think there is definitely a connection.
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