14 DAY TRIAL // Young children who consume soft drinks on a regular basis are more likely to be aggressive and withdrawn. Besides, attention problems are more common among such children, a paper in The Journal of Pediatrics argues.
Specialist Shakira Suglia and her fellow researchers concluded that regular soft drinks consumption could foster behavioral problems in young children after surveying nearly 3,000 5-year-old kids in the US and their families.
Of these children, 4% consumed at least 4, EurekAlert tells us.
Apparently, these kids were twice more likely than others to get into fights, attack those around them, and destroy things that did not belong to them.
“We found that the child's aggressive behavior score increased with every increase in soft drinks servings per day,” Dr. Shakira Suglia explains.
The researchers are presently unable to say how and why soft drinks influence a child's behavior. However, they urge that parents try keeping their children away from such beverages.