Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2013 16:52:56 GMT -5
Avoid soft drinks. See the study about soft drinks
and children from the Journal of Pediatrics.
Soft Drinks Consumption Is Associated with Behavior Problems
in 5-Year-Olds
Shakira F. Suglia, ScD1, Sara Solnick, PhD2, and David Hemenway, PhD3
Objective To examine soda consumption and aggressive behaviors, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior among 5-year-old children.
Study design The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a prospective birth cohort study that follows a sample of mother-child pairs from 20 large US cities. Mothers reported children’s behaviors using the Child Behavior Checklist at age 5 years and were asked to report how many servings of soda the child drinks on a typical day.
Results In the sample of 2929 children, 52% were boys, 51% were African-American, 43% consumed at least one serving of soda per day, and 4% consumed 4 or more servings per day. In analyses adjusted for sociodemographic factors, consuming one (beta, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.1-1.4), 2 (beta, 1.8; 95% CI, 0.8-2.7), 3 (beta, 2.0; 95% CI, 0.6-3.4), or
4 or more (beta, 4.7; 95% CI, 3.2-6.2) servings was associated with a higher aggressive behavior score comparedwith consuming no soda. Furthermore, those who consumed 4 or more (beta, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.0-2.4) soda servingshad higher scores on the attention problems subscale. Higher withdrawn behavior scores were noted among thoseconsuming 2 (beta, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.3-1.8) or 4 or more (beta, 2.0; 95% CI, 0.8-3.1) soda servings compared with those who consumed no soda.
Conclusion Wenote an association between soda consumption and negative behavioramong very young children; future studies should explore potential mechanisms that could explain this association. (J Pediatr 2013;-:---).
Americans buy more soda per capita than people in any other country worldwide.1 Even very young children consume soft drinks. For example, national surveys of US children aged 4-5 years fromthe mid-1990s found that, on average, they consumed 11 g of added sugar per day from regular (ie, nondiet) soft drinks alone, which corresponds to 25% of a 12-oz
can.2 In California, a 2005 survey found that more than 40% of children aged 2-11 years drank at least 1 serving of soda per day.3 Among adolescents, consuming soft drinks is associated with aggression,4,5 as well as with depression and suicidal thoughts,
and withdrawal behavior (Hemenway et al, unpublished data, 2013).5-7 Previous studies using data from national high school surveys found a dose-response relationship between the amount of soft drinks consumed and both self-harm and aggression toward others. Despite the fact that young children also are consuming soft drinks, the relationship between soda consumption
and behavior has not been evaluated in this age group.
Numerous factors may affect both soda consumption and problem behavior in children. Poor dietary choices, such as high
soda consumption, in young children may be associated with other parenting practices, such as excessive television (TV)
viewing and high consumption of other sweets. Furthermore, parenting practices may be associated with social factors known
to be associated with child behavior. The relationship between a stressful home environment and child behavior is well known; for example, children who are victims of violent acts or who witness violence have been found to have more externalizing and
internalizing behavior problems and more aggression problems, and to show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder.8-10 Moreover, caretaker mental health can be a strong contributor to problems in children through its effects on parenting quality and overall home environment.11 Children of depressed mothers have been shown to develop more social and emotional problems during childhood, including internalizing and externalizing problems.12 Thus, it is possible that observed associations between behavior and soda consumption in adolescents can be attributed to unadjusted social risk factors.
Full article: www.jpeds.com/webfiles/images/journals/ympd/JPEDSSuglia.pdf
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