Kids getting hooked to Energy Drinks

By Alice Noman

The new lunch pack for the teens are cans of Monster, Rockstar and Red Bull that have the caffeine equivalent almost triple the amount of soft drinks. Same goes for gourmet coffee concoctions, which are loaded with sugar and kilojoules.

Kids as young as 8 year old are getting hooked up to these drinks which has serious potential consequences for their growing bodies. For young children 100 gm of caffeine can have equivalent stimulant effect of eight cups of instant coffee in an adult. Many young children are drinking Redline, a weight-loss drink with many of the same ingredients as other the energy drinks.

Having caffeine in large amounts can cause headache and poor concentration. Caffeine rich diets can also cause other problems such as insomnia, bed wetting, anxiety, tremors, nausea and diarrhea, and high doses will cause your heart to race; palpitations, seizures, and high blood pressure. Drinking energy drinks in large amount can cause diuresis (increased urine production) leading to dehydration.

The underage teenagers and adults has started another trend - mixing energy drinks with alcohol, which carries its own dangers. Scientists at John Hopkins University found that college kids who drink the dangerous mix of alcohol and energy drinks are more likely to be involved in accidents than those consuming just alcohol.

An Australian study, done on children aged 10 to 15 showed that they are getting, on an average, half an hour less of sleep than they were twenty years ago.

It's time you should look into your child's caffeine intake and to find out if he/she has developed the caffeine habit, see what happens when it is not available. If you see your child is sleepy or lethargic, yawns a lot, complain of headache than its' the time to stop.

Lets look at the amount of Caffeine present in the drinks:

V(250ml): 78mg

Red Bull(250ml): 80mg

Dare (200ml): 64mg

Red eye (330ml):106mg

Naughty Boy(250ml):78mg

Blue Ox (250ml): 78mg

Recharge (300ml): 66mg

Coca-Cola (375mg): 49mg

Pepsi (375ml): 49mg

Short black coffee (100ml): 80mg

Chocolate, milk (1oz) 3-6mg

Sunkist 40mg

Mountain Dew (12oz) 55mg

Strong tea (teabag) (250ml): 20mg