Contributed by Tom Lake.Area Manager, USA Sport Group.
We work with children over a broad age range, from 3-18 years old; recreation to high school level players. I myself coach around 200 4-12 year old children per week and as a rough estimate, at least 50% bring sports drinks. Sports drinks are a multi-billion dollar industry, but how important are they in youth soccer?
The main use of a sports drink is to replace electrolytes ? electrically charged ions which maintain the body?s ability to transmit nerve impulses and contract muscles. They also help water balance and distribution to working cells in the body. The President?s Council of Sports and Fitness state that ?electrolyte replacement is not needed during short bursts of exercise since sweat is approximately 99% water and less than 1% electrolytes.?
Simply looking in public domains, e.g. the internet, books and word of mouth, the general consensus is that Sports Drinks are nominally at best beneficial in a youth?s performance. Advertising plays an astronomical part in promoting these types of drinks ? using famous players, colorful flavors and strong guarantees of performance-enhancing nutrients and supplements inside. Heneghan et al (2012) studied over a thousand advertisements, websites and adverts from sports hydration manufacturers, ?covering 431 performance enhancing claims in 104 products. Only 146 of these had any sort of reference to back this up. Over 52% of these performance-enhancing claims had no scientific reference or acknowledgement? and ?80% of the entire statements were shown to have a high bias towards their product?.
Brown (2009) explains that ?The usual foods we eat contain far more electrolytes than sports drinks. For example, a medium banana contains about 450mg of potassium, whereas Gatorade provides 30mg per 8-ounce serving?. After a long run, a meal consisting of 8 ounces of yogurt and a can of chicken noodle soup would adequately replace lost electrolytes (potassium and sodium)?' With this information explained on the basis of an adult?s daily requirements, seeing a child turn up with a 32oz bottle of a sport drink makes you wonder where the excess nutrients are going. The body can only ingest a set amount of each nutrient (dependant on a host of factors like age, weight etc) so the excess is being lost. Anyone who has had an ?old-school? electrolyte drink of water, sugar and salt knows how vile it can taste, hence the need for these drinks to have added sweeteners and sugar. These add to the calorific value of the drink ?suddenly we are adding excess sugar and calories in a nation where obesity is a massive focal issue. A friend of mine ? a holistic personal trainer ? suggested we should use a 90/10% diet ? 90% natural foods in their form and 10% of manufactured foods as rewards. The chemicals, dyes and artificial sweeteners in sugar free drinks can potentially be even worse than sugary drinks. Water is the body?s preferred way to rehydrate, and surely must be better than a chemically enhanced product where long term health benefits haven?t been proved?
Parents, coaches ? what are your opinions?
Source: http://blog.unitedsocceracademy.com/2012/10/sports-drinks-are-they-worth-it.html
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