A new study recently released by the Journal of Pediatrics has found that small children who drink soft drinks are more likely to be aggressive, withdrawn and have attention problems. The study took 3,000 five year old children from 20 major cities. Of these children, at least 43% of them had at least one serving of soda a day and 4% had four or more servings of soda per day. What they found was that with each increase in soda consumption, all of the children showed a more pronounced display of these behaviors mentioned above. Even after taking into consideration all of the social and demographic factors, those who drank four or more soft drinks per day were more than twice as likely to destroy things belonging to others, participate in fights, and physically attack people.
I am hoping this research will go further into the reasons why young children had such a bad reaction. Was it because of the unhealthy ingredients in the sodas or the healthy foods they were not eating? Their little stomachs can only hold so much and sodas are filling. Previous studies have shown that when two synthetic additives are consumed together, the damage is greater than when eaten alone. Some of the ingredients found in sodas, depending on which one you are purchasing are:
- high fructose corn syrup
- aspartame
- caffeine
- FD&C dyes
- artificial flavors
- sodium benzoate
- phosphoric acid
None of these ingredients sounds like anything any of us should put into our bodies but they are sure to be even more dangerous to the development of children. If your child is drinking sodas, try to reduce it slowly or substitute it with real fruit juice if they refuse water. Your child’s health and well being depends on it.
For more information on this study, click here