INDUSTRY DIRECTORY

Sugar does not make children hyperactive, claims psychologist

Published online: Jun 09, 2015 News
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For any parent who has witnessed the manic mayhem of a children’s birthday party, it might come as something of a shock, but sugar does not make children more hyperactive, according to experts.

Psychologists believe what parents mistake for a ‘sugar rush’ is just the natural high-spirits of children when they get together, and it is merely a coincidence that those events often include cakes or sweets.

In fact, parents could be making the problem worse by expecting their children to misbehave after sugary foods and so reinforcing the stereotype, and making youngsters act up.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival David Benton, professor of psychology at Swansea University said: “People are mixing the fact that it gives you energy with feeling energetic.

“Sugar does not increase the activity of children. It is the expectation of the parents. Children get hyperactive at party, running around wild and winding themselves up. That is the problem distinguishing one thing from another. The child knows they can let themselves go so they do.

“But there is a very clear message that sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.”

“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."

Prof Benton said studies have shown that giving sugary drinks to children at school actually makes them concentrate more fully perform better in tests and improves mood.

“They spend more time on their schoolwork,” he said,

“That’s not to say we should be giving sugar drinks to children. But children are different from adults in that their brain is a larger percentage of their body so it takes a larger percentage of energy. Also the brain tissue uses twice as much energy so you need a continual supply of energy.

“That’s not to say it should be supplied by sugar drinks but a child does need on a regular basis to be consuming food. When it is released slowly the child is in a better mood and preforms better at school.”

Prof Benton also said it was a myth that sugar is as addictive as cocaine.

“Anything to do with pleasure involves the release of dopamine in reward pathways in the brain,” he said.

“But scientists have found no strong evidence for people, being addicted to chemical substances in certain foods.”

However Graham Macgregor , Professor Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute, Queen Mary University of London, told the festival that the food industry needed to dramatically reduce the amount of sugar in processed foods to prevent the obesity epidemic growing,

“The food industry is overfeeding us with vast amounts of sugar,” he said.

“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.

"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."

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk