Screen Time Linked to Greater Caffeine, Sugar Consumption Among Teens
Wired:
Screen Time Linked to Greater Caffeine, Sugar Consumption Among Teens
by
John Anderer October 23, 2019
HAMILTON, Ontario — You
would be hard pressed to find a teenager these days without a smartphone or
tablet by their side at all hours of the day. Electronic devices are a
seemingly unavoidable fact of life in modern society, especially for young
people who have never known a world without iPhones and the like.
Simultaneously, many adolescents are consuming far more than the recommended
amounts of caffeine of sugar each and every day. Interestingly, researchers
from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada say that these two trends
are connected: teens who spend more time watching TV and browsing the web are
also very likely to consume excessive amounts of sugared or caffeinated drinks.
According to researchers, recent data actually indicates that
overall consumption of caffeine among adolescents is trending down, but teens
who report frequent use of electronic devices are drinking more coffee, energy
drinks, soda, etc. For their research, the study’s
authors examined 32,418 American students in eighth or tenth grade.
“There is a trend towards reduced energy drink and soda
consumption between 2013 and 2016 which is our latest data, but greater
electronic device use, particularly TV, is linked to more consumption of added
sugar and caffeine among adolescents,” explains study leader and pediatrician
Dr. Katherine Morrison in a release. “Addressing this through counseling or
health promotion could potentially help.”
Drinking an extra coffee or energy drink may not
sound like such a big deal at first, but both sugary and artificially sweetened drinks are associated
with a greater risk of diabetes, obesity, dental problems, and sleep loss.
Furthermore, too much caffeine can cause headaches, nausea, high blood pressure, and
chest pain, among other problems. Frequent excessive consumption of these
beverages can potentially wreak havoc on young peoples’ bodies and mental
states. That’s why both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian
Pediatric Society strongly recommend that physicians, parents, and teachers do
everything they can to educate adolescents on the dangers of overconsumption.
Researchers discovered that over 27% of teens consume more than
the recommended amount of sugar, and 21% drink too much caffeine, mostly from
energy drinks and soda. Boys tend to drink more caffeine than girls, and eighth
graders drink more caffeine and sugar than tenth graders.
Just one
extra hour of TV per day was associated with a 32% higher risk
of exceeding the World Health Organization’s daily sugar recommendations.
Similarly, each extra hour of TV was also linked to a 28% higher chance of
exceeding WHO caffeine recommendations. And each extra hour of social media or
time spent talking on the phone was also associated with an increased risk of
consuming more sugar and caffeine.
Surprisingly, playing video games, an activity often associated
with staying up late and drinking caffeine in popular culture, was only
marginally linked to increased caffeine consumption.
“Given the marketing campaigns that target video gamers, we
expected a particularly strong association between caffeine intake from energy
drinks or sodas with video game use, but TV was linked more strongly,” Dr.
Morrison says.
However, using a computer or other electronic device for school
work was not linked to greater caffeine or sugar consumption. In fact, these
instances were actually linked to a lower likelihood of drinking excessive
sugar.
The study is published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
Comments
Post a Comment