Children as young as five who consume soft drinks every day are more likely to have behavioral problems such as aggression, difficulty in paying attention and social withdrawal, US. researchers said.
Previous studies have found that soft drink consumption is associated with aggression, depression and suicidal thoughts in adolescents but the relationship had not been evaluated in younger children, Xinhua reported.
In the new study, the researchers from the Columbia University, the University of Vermont and the Harvard School of Public Health assessed about 3,000 five-year-old children enrolled from 20 large US cities. Mothers reported their child’s soft drink consumption and completed the child behavior checklist based on their child’s behavior during the previous two months.
The researchers reported in the Journal of Pediatrics that 43 percent of the children consumed at least one serving of soft drinks per day and 4 percent consumed four or more.
“Children who drank four or more soft drinks per day were more than twice as likely to destroy things belonging to others, get into fights and physically attack people,” they said. The kids also had increased attention problems and withdrawal behavior compared to those children who did not consume soft drinks.
“We found that the child’s aggressive behavior score increased with every increase in soft drinks servings per day,” said Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health Assistant Professor of epidemiology Shakira Suglia.
“Although this study cannot identify the exact nature of the association between soft drink consumption and problem behaviors, limiting or eliminating a child’s soft drink consumption may reduce behavioral problems,” she added.
Pepsi Damaging Pak_Youth ; here is The Proof.
Full_Marks to ' Pakistan Today ' to bring this to Poor / Aggrieved_Nation.
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