Health & Lifestyle

EXCLUSIVE: The REAL reason kids act hyper after eating candy – and it’s not because of the sugar

  • The idea that sugar makes children hyperactive is a myth, experts have said
  • Instead, parents expect their kids to be hyper – so the children act up as a result 
  • READ MORE: Concerning levels of toxic metals found in Halloween chocolates 

It’s assumed to be a key rule of parenting: don’t give children candy in the evening – it will have them bouncing off the walls with energy.

Sugar, it has long been thought, is a trigger for hyperactive behavior, sending children running around and full of beans.

Prince William‘s youngest child Prince Louis, five, was said to be suffering the effects of candy consumption on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

The young royal – fourth in line to the British throne – emerged the star of the show when pictures of his silly facial expressions circulated online.

Now, experts have highlighted growing evidence that suggests the link between candy and behavior IS real – but it is not because there is something in sugar that makes kids badly behaved.

Prince Louis stole the hearts of the nation with his antics during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. Mike Tindall - the husband of Prince William's cousin - suggested his cheeky behavior was due to a sugar high

Prince Louis stole the hearts of the nation with his antics during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. Mike Tindall – the husband of Prince William’s cousin – suggested his cheeky behavior was due to a sugar high

Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte and Savannah Phillips eating sweets during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant held outside Buckingham Palace, in London

Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte and Savannah Phillips eating sweets during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant held outside Buckingham Palace, in London

Prince Louis, who is Prince William's son and fourth in line to the throne

Prince Louis, who is Prince William’s son and fourth in line to the throne

And there’s a simple way you can stop children running wild after sweets – without denying them the candy they love. 

In a blog post recently shared to his Twitter feed, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, wrote: ‘The evidence doesn’t stack up. 

‘The science shows pretty conclusively that sugar itself doesn’t make children hyperactive. The grand urban myth is just that: a myth.’

The idea seems plausible as humans burn sugar for energy. 

 

The body quickly converts sugar in food to a simple sugar called glucose, which is  carried through the blood and delivered to every cell, giving us energy. 

Eating a lot of simple sugars, such as from Halloween candy, in a short space of time, means they are processed quickly and can give us a big spike of energy.

But this spike drops down to normal levels after a relatively short period of time, and studies show this does not result in hyperactive behavior in children.  

But multiple studies in the 1990s found that sugar has no influence on children’s behavior.

In the most famous of these, in 1994, mothers were told their children had either been given sugar or an artificial sweetener. They were then each asked to rate their child’s hyperactivity.

All the children had been given artificial sweeteners, but mothers who were told their children had sugar were more likely to rate them as hyperactive.

This implies the sugar itself was not causing the kids in the study to be hyperactive, but rather the mothers’ expectation – which triggered a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The women’s expectations that the sugar would send their children hyper meant they were more likely to interpret behavior as overly energetic.

‘We’re almost 40 years later, and people still think sugars make their kids really active or hyperactive,’ said Dr Sabiha Kanchwala, general pediatrics specialist at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital.

Some studies have even suggested the opposite is true – that eating sugar makes people more focused, less aggressive and more in control.

All the findings are based on fairly weak evidence, said Dr Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who recommended taking them ‘with a pinch of salt.’

‘But they do make the sugar-equals-hyperactivity hypothesis less likely than most parents would like to think,’ he added.

The most likely explanations are social, Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said. People think that sugar makes children hyperactive, so when they see overexcited kids, they assume they have had a generous dose of sugar.

And when children eat sugar, people expect them to be hyperactive. It is a ‘vicious cycle of confirmation bias’ which does not hold true in scientific studies, Dr Meyerowitz-Katz said.

Children themselves also perpetuate the sugar-hyperactivity myth.

Dr Kanchwala said: ‘Even children know the power of their brains. They say, “I ate all this candy, I’m never going to go to sleep!”‘


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