There’s an emerging consensus that most packaged drinks are as harmful as junk food, with the potential to provoke a wide range of ailments including high blood pressure, cholesterol, juvenile diabetes, obesity, and heart disease – Nikhil Jayadevan, Mini P. & Cynthia John India’s prolonged 60-weeks Covid-19 induced lockdown of schools and education institutions — the longest of any major country worldwide — which forced 260 million children to learn from home as best they could, has had the under-reported incidence of widespread eating disorders among children, including rising obesity in middle class India. However, most discussions about children’s nutrition and health are focused on food rather than the fluids they have been consuming to their detriment. The focus of debates has been on junk food with health and nutrition experts unanimous about its devastating effects on children’s long-term physical health and well-being. But latterly, health and nutrition professionals have brought many packaged fluids/drinks within the ambit of junk foods which are adversely affecting children’s health. There’s an emerging consensus that most packaged drinks are as harmful as junk food, with the potential to provoke a wide range of ailments including high blood pressure, cholesterol, juvenile diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. During the pandemic, numerous beverage companies offering children a plethora of sports and energy drinks ranging from milkshakes to fruit juices, mushroomed countrywide with parents — unaware of the harm that some of their ingredients cause to vulnerable children — falling for their glitzy advertising. According to a study, Health Effects of Energy Drinks of Children, Adolescents and Young Adults published in the Journal of Paediatrics (2016), “some beverages” contain caffeine, ginseng and other stimulants that can cause “seizures, cardiac abnormalities, behavioural disorders, mood disorders and diabetes” in children. The study highlights that unregulated caffeine content in energy drinks “has been associated with serious consequences such as seizures, mania, stroke, and sudden death.” “Most parents are unaware about the dangers of children consuming packaged beverages, including widely advertised health and energy drinks. Most of them contain high levels of caffeine and sugar and cause serious ailments such as metabolic disorder, behavioural problems and heart palpitations. Over-consumption of some energy drinks can also result in renal diseases such as kidney stones. Parents mistakenly believe that allowing children to consume energy drinks, especially while they are engaged in sports and/or preparing for exams, will give them a much-needed energy boost. Parents should restrict consumption of packaged beverages,” says Subhashini Satish, nutritionist-dietitian, Colours, a wellness centre in Chennai. In particular, during the pandemic-induced schools lockdown with children confined 24×7 to their homes with limited physical exercise, in middle-class homes, many of them have been bingeing on junk food, aerated beverages and packaged health drinks. Sheila Sharma, a Bengaluru-based IT professional and mother of 12-year-old Rishabh, laments that lack of awareness about the dangers posed by aerated/health drinks resulted in her son being diagnosed with diabetes during the pandemic months. “During the lockdown, I was balancing long hours of work from home with…
