Health Official Warns: Children Don't Need Sports Drinks

Health Official Warns: Children Don't Need Sports Drinks.

Source- ABC NEWS

(ABC News) - The commercials show that sports stars need them, but the American Academy of Pediatrics says the average child does not.

Sports drinks offer electrolyte replacement after physical activity, but teenagers are more likely drinking them because of multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. Many states have banned sodas in schools, but still allow the sale of sports drinks, even though they're full of sugar and calories, a setup for obesity and future diabetes.

With all the panic about childhood and teen obesity, researchers from Hofstra and Ohio State asked why sports drinks aren't getting slam dunked. They compared National CDC data from 2010 and 2015 and found that the percentage of teenagers who drank a sports drink in the last week was up 2%, from 58% to 60%. At the same time, the percentage of teenagers who reported drinking a sports drink every day went down 2%, from 16% to 14%.

The largest reduction in weekly consumption of sports drinks was in African-American kids, going from 26% to 20%. But being African-American or Hispanic made it more likely those kids were drinking them every day.

Ironically, being physically active or watching more than two hours of television per day were more more likely to make kids turn to a sports drink every day.

Doctors warn: They just don't need them.