Sports Drinks and Children: Do They Mix? August 6, 2009
We’re in the dog days of August now and should take heed of the ramifications of one University’s research on child athletes and hydration.
The study found that child athletes from 9-16 failed to drink enough water to stay hydrated during athletic activity. That problem is exacerbated by the fact that they routinely fail to drink enough and arrived at summer sports camps dehydrated to begin with.
Because many arrived at camp already dehydrated and then practiced an average of three times a day, between 50 and 75 percent of children at the various camps ended up “significantly” dehydrated and 25 to 30 percent of them became “seriously” dehydrated.
Acute dehydration can cause kidney failure and death, not to mention that just a 1 to 2 percent reduction in body mass from sweating causes reduced aerobic performance in young athletes. Children also become dehydrated faster than adults causing their core temperature to also rise faster.
Additional studies indicate that children just don’t drink water even if it is available. The ironic thing is that the same children think they are doing a good job of staying hydrated during their activities.
The solution is much easier than preaching the importance of hydration and praying they’ll listen. Here’s one of those “they really needed a study to figure that out” moments – children will drink a lot more liquids when they taste good.
Children voluntarily drank 44.5 percent more when exercising if the available hydration was grape flavored water than if the available hydration was pure water. When carbohydrate (sugar) was added like in today’s sports drinks, children voluntarily drank 91 percent more than when only water was available.
There is a caveat – sports drinks are not appropriate for children of all ages and activities. Sports drinks are only appropriate for older children engaged in intense physical activity for an hour or more continuously or if they engage in multiple practices per day.
Most children younger than 10 or 12 don’t exercise intensely enough to require carbohydrate and electrolyte replenishment. If a child is not burning enough calories to require a sports drink, the drinks can be counterproductive, having been linked to obesity and tooth decay.
In today’s economy, sports drinks can also be expensive. Try this do-it-yourself recipe from Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook”
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 1/2 cups cold water
In a quart pitcher, dissolve the sugar and salt in the hot water. Add the remaining ingredients and the cold water. The drink contains about 50 calories and 110 mg of sodium per 8 ounces, approximately the same as for most sports drinks.
