I believe it makes some children hyperactive–why not? Isn’t sugar known to give you a burst of quick energy? In some kids, that can translate into hyperactivity.
It didn’t make most of my kids hyperactive, but in one of them I could see a difference immediately. I don’t know if I’d call it hyperactive, but I wouldn’t have put a cookie in his lunch for school.
So as to why many parents believe it: they’ve seen it.
The study doesn’t seem to be designed to answer that question. “Does sugar make kids hyper?” has probably been researched in other studies, and this study seems to be designed to answer the next question: “If sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity, then why does everyone think it does?”
It does sort of address that question in a roundabout way. The placebo effect is amazingly strong, far more than most people realize. If parents start telling their kids “no, you can’t have that candy bar, you’ll go nuts and I won’t be able to get you to sleep for hours” you set up the idea in the kids mind that sugary treats = expectation and excuse to be hyper. So even if there’s no physiological effect with sugar consumption, you’ve planted the idea in your kids head, and they may actually react this way even though they wouldn’t have if you hadn’t believed they would in the first place.
Beyond that, it’s simple confirmation bias. You think kids should be hyper after eating sugar, so if they’re borderline hyper without having eaten sugar you’ll dismiss it, but if they act the same way after sugar you’ll think it proves the idea you’ll already believe.
I don’t think “simple carbs provide fast-acting energy” in the sense of something like a drug or adrenaline rush is true. It may just be “fast acting” in a metabolic sense - what you eat readily and quickly converts to glucose - but not necesarily in any “sudden burst of stimulant drug energy” sense. Besides that - simple carbs are in almost everything. Grain products are made almost entirely of simple carbs that are almost as ready to convert to glucose as table sugar, but I don’t think people have the expectation that kids go crazy after eating oatmeal. Why then do only the simple carbs in cake/candy/pop/treat items cause the apparent hyperactivity rather than their roughly digestively equivelant starches? Social expectation on on what foods cause hyperactivity.
This is the first time I’m hearing that sugar rush is a myth.
Straight Dope, bustin’ ignorance even in 2010.
OK, let’s put it this way: if I was shaky, anxious, had concentration problems and showed a high level of excitement after just eating a load of sugar as a child, my parents would label me as being “hyperactive”, without perhaps meeting a strict medical definition of the word. Perhaps a proper definition of hyperactivity is in order. In what sense is “shaky, anxious, possessing concentration problems and easily excitable” different from hyperactivity (serious question: I suspect many parents label a child as being hyperactive without actually know what it is).
The poster made a very valid opinion.
Your answer smacks of bullying because of your position of Mod.
I suggest that you get a grip on yourself.
The show “Jo Frost: Extreme Parental Guidance” did something like that - they fed half a group of kids sugary foods and the other half non-sugary foods, then asked the children’s parents (who presumably know what their children are normally like) to watch them play for a while and decide whether their child was in the sugar or non-sugar group. The results were no better than random guessing. Here’s a short clip from the show, although not from the test bit.
And speaking anecdotally, my daughter (who is almost two) becomes more energetic after she eats, regardless of what she eats.
Why do parents believe it - because some parents like to believe all sorts of things. Parents believe that getting rid of wheat and casein make a difference in their autistic children. That getting rid of red dye helps behavioral problems. That vaccines cause autism. That if they let their kids out of their sight for two minutes, they’ll be abducted by a pervert. That early reading is a sign of future success in life. That their kids are above average in looks and intelligence.
In this they are no better or no worse than the general population, some of whom believe the moon landing was faked, Obama is not a citizen, that evolution has no basis, and a dinosaur lives in Loch Ness.
Too much sugar is bad for you - if you are an adult or a child. If adults limit kids sugar because they believe it causes hyperactivity - the end result isn’t bad even if the science behind the reasoning is faulty.
And parents of kids who are “sugar creates hyperactivity age” really don’t have time to research their parenting decisions. That’s a luxury for pregnant women and parents of newborns who can read the latest research on what color to decorate the nursery. Once they get to the “eating candy” stage - its full steam ahead, go with your gut.
You’ll have to ask the researchers on that one. I’m just pointing out that at least one of the authors explicitly stated that the study does not demonstrate that “dietary sugar is the cause of hyperactivity problems”. Since I don’t have access to the paper, I can’t read it and see what they really mean, or what they believe they have actually demonstrated.
Is it possible that some parents are confusing caffeine for sugar? They give the kid a mountain dew and a chocolate bar, then blame the sugar for any jumpiness?
It is amazing what people will continue to believe, no matter how many times the scientific community tries to debunk it. They will stretch and stretch till it makes sense.
My daughter loves to go in the rain. I let her. She is allowed to go out front, no jacket on a fall day and frolic in the rain. I get told from every direction. My mom, the neighbors, my in laws, “She is going to catch her death of cold! What’s the matter with you!” If I explain that cold germs cause colds, not playingin the rain on an Autumn evening, I still get someone stretching to make their ideas fit. “But if you lower her ability to fight off cold germs by exposing her to the elements, she is more likely to get sick”. Yeah. Right. We’ll take that chance for the trade off of being able to feel the chilly rain drops bless our foreheads.
ETA: I mean, I could see their point if she was on a tundra with no mittens. But, come on. Stretching.
Ah, yes, the old “wet head” argument. One of my favorites. Just tell them you gave her echinacea and vitamin C first.
My favorite is my mother’s firm belief that dust bunnies under the bed make you ill. My mother has all sorts of superstitious notions regarding child rearing. The wet head is another one. Watching TV in the dark is bad for your eyes (don’t have any idea if that is true or not).
My mother in law is convinced violent video games are horrible for her grandson and should absolutely be forbidden from our house because our children are sure to turn into serial killers from exposure.
I don’t know the scientific term but eating sugar increases dopamine(?). This would cause an uplift in mood and energy.
The poster was threadshitting. I suggest you take the chip off your shoulder.
[ /Modding ]
Oh no! Not another “blame the mother” study. I thought we were so over that line of thought.
Don’t people reading here eat something sugary in the morning or when they need a little extra energy?
Eating on an empty stomach in general can give you a boost of energy, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that something sugary has a vastly different effect than something starchy beyond any differences in glycemic index. They become the same thing very quickly in the digestive process.
Why not blame the mothers (or the fathers), if they’re being unscientific about the matter? There is nothing whatsoever about the ability to stick one’s dick in someone or to grunt out a child 9 months later that makes one a scientist. By that token, why not listen to the good horse sense of the mothers (and fathers) who claim their kids became autistic from MMR injections or thimerosal, despite no good evidence?
No.
I’ll share again my experience IRL as a diabetic - MANY times I’ve asked and had co-workers take the blood sugar challenge. When I get tired enough of hearing my employees say “oh, I feel soooooooo bad, I know my blood sugar is low - I’d better eat 4 donuts!” or “oh that lunch was huuuuuuuuge, I can feel my blood sugar spiking! I’m full of energy!” I ask them if they’d like to see how low (or high) it is with my blood glucometer. And in every, single, solitary case, without exception, every person has had their blood sugar between 110-120. Absolutely perfect middle-of-the-road.
The typical reaction, of course, is denial:
“Oh, your meter must only work for diabetics.”
“Huh, must be wrong.”
“Oh, those things never work for me.”
“You must not be using it right. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
:rolleyes:
People - the average American - you know, idiots - have no freaking clue about what goes on in their bodies, medicine, science, or anything past what’s on ESPN that night or who is on American Idol. The average American is a technological and scientific dumbass of breathtaking proportions, and when they sit in front of Google or Wikipedia to try to fumble around and “research” something, you may as well be giving a deep sea tube worm a microwave oven and asking it to operate it. It’ll stab blindly at the controls and might be able to turn in on, but only by dumb, animal luck.
So yes, we should “blame the mothers” when the mothers act stupid. The McCarthyism of Science in America makes us a laughingstock.
Reading the accounts of behavior that gets blamed on sugar is amazing and amusing. You got mothers who honestly believe that if their child eats a piee of chocolate and two days later has a temper tantrum “the chocolate made her do it.”
Well, there seems a very good reason to differentiate the sugar case from the thimerosal case - believing the first, while unscientific, doesn’t lead to horrible consequences. It isn’t like kids are actively harmed by being deprived of sugar, in our culture - the average kid gets more than enough.
For another, as pointed out repeatedly, while the actual addition of sugar does not appear to make any difference in behaviour, the subjective impact of being awarded a treat most certainly does in many cases. Parents may observe the effect and (unscientifically) attribute it to the ingredient rather than the reward. Practically, the effect is little different, far as they are concerned.
Do some take it too far, get bent all out of shape over the slightest thing, blame every melt-down on a sip of soda taken two days before? Of course. Most do not, though, and certainly the ‘average’ person doesn’t. This usually comes up in the context of bombarding children with over-many chocolates and the like - something to be avoided anyway.
Heh, I don’t share your contempt for the “average American”; nor do I think this is a good example of their “stupidity”. It is perfectly possible to be scientifically wrong on a topic and incorrectly accept a bit of folk wisdom later proven wrong without being “stupid”.
Serious question: HOW are different people using the term “hyperactivity”?
When an ordinary suburban Mom says “My kids are really hyper today,” she’s probably not using a precise medical definition! She just means “My kids have a lot of energy and are running around like maniacs.” Which, of course, is often a normal and perfectly healthy thing for kids.
A psychiatrist has a specific definition of hyperactivity, and his definition entails a LOT more than just “kids running around like maniacs.”
So, when a psychiatrist says confidently and correctly “Sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity,” is he saying that sugar has no effect at all on kids’ behavior? Or is he merely saying “A kid who’s been diagnosed as hyperactive will NOT be helped by a low-sugar or no-sugar diet”?
In other words, could it be that the doctor who says “Sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity”'and the Mom who says “Sugar makes my kids go nuts for an hour” are both right, but talking about completely different things?
The deniers are idiots, but I’d rather take the opportunity to learn something. I was under the naive impression that diabetics and non-diabetics both had swings in blood sugar levels, but that a non-diabetic would return to normal after a relatively short period of time, while a diabetic would not. I assumed that when I felt that mid-afternoon crash that it really did indicate low blood sugar, which could be corrected quickly by eating something or over a couple of hours by metabolizing stores of energy in muscle or (over longer periods) fat.
Is this incorrect? What then does cause that mid-afternoon feeling of lightheadedness and hunger?