Image by Thomas Grau from Pixabay
Image by Thomas Grau from Pixabay

Sugary drinks impact girls and boys differently in preschool

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Randomised controlled trial: Subjects are randomly assigned to a test group, which receives the treatment, or a control group, which commonly receives a placebo. In 'blind' trials, participants do not know which group they are in; in ‘double blind’ trials, the experimenters do not know either. Blinding trials helps removes bias.

People: This is a study based on research using people.

A sugary drink at preschool can change a child's behaviour and maths achievement, but the impact is different for girls and boys, according to an international study. In a randomised controlled trial, 400 preschool children were either given a drink with the sugar equivalent of a can of soft drink, or a drink with artificial sweeteners like you would find in a 'zero sugar' beverage. Their behaviour was then monitored and they were given a maths task 30, 45, 60 and 120 minutes after the drink. The researchers say while boys appeared to perform less well in math after an hour, the girls improved their performance 45 minutes after the drink until the 120 minute test. Only boys saw a significant behaviour change, the researchers say, becoming more restless after 45 minutes after originally seeming more relaxed.

Journal/conference: Health Economics

Research: Paper

Organisation/s: KU Leuven, Belgium

Funder: The authors received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 691676 (EdEN). The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this article. This study is registered in the AEA RCT Registry and the unique identifying number is AEARCTR-0002782.

Media release

From: Wiley

What is the short-term impact of sugary drinks in the classroom?

A new study in Health Economics finds that sugary drinks impact behavior and math scores of preschool children.

In the study, investigators randomly assigned 462 children to receive sugary drinks or artificially sweetened drinks, and they collected data before and after consumption.

Consuming one sugary drink tended to induce an initial ‘relaxing’ effect for boys, before making them more restless. Girls’ behavior was not significantly affected.

Also, consuming one sugary drink seemed to have a negative effect on student achievement in math for boys and a positive effect for girls.

“Our study is the first to provide large-scale experimental evidence on the impact of sugary drinks on preschool children. The results clearly indicate a causal impact of sugary drinks on children's behavior and test scores,” said corresponding author Fritz Schiltz, PhD, of KU Leuven, in Belgium.

“The associated effects on in-class performance have major policy implications, as sugary drinks are still ubiquitously sold in schools and as the consumption of sugary drinks is typically higher among children from low-income households and among boys,” added co-author Kristof De Witte, a professor at KU Leuven.

URL Upon Publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.4444

Attachments:

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public

  •  Research
    Wiley
    Web page
    The URL will go live after the embargo ends

News for:

International

Media contact details for this story are only visible to registered journalists.