A while back (March 11, 2008 to be exact), The Plain Dealer ran a story, “This is not kid stuff”, focusing on the availability of caffeine to younger children and the effects it has on them. If you didn’t save the story, or you don’t live in Cleveland, you can check it out for yourself here. While the article does have some info on the beneficial of coffee and caffeine such as:

“A recent study in the journal Neuroscience found that a coffee regimen prevented memory impairment in mice that were genetically programmed to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Another recent study, in the International Journal of Cancer, suggested that coffee might protect against kidney cancer.

Research with female college students found that caffeine seemed to lessen muscle pain the day after a challenging workout. Earlier studies found reduced rates of liver disease among people who drink more than two cups of coffee a day; that heavy coffee drinking can cut the risk of the most common form of diabetes; and that coffee provides more of the antioxidants that fight cancer, heart disease and aging than do any other food or beverage in the American diet.” [1]

The article seems to take advantage of parent paranoia, such as the introduction, when it addresses a common misconception that ‘caffeine stunts your growth’. Before I go on about this article, I want to take a minute to correct this myth. Caffeine, does not stunt your growth. The main reason for this belief is that children grow in their sleep. So, if a child is not getting any sleep, they could, in theory, grow less. This would not be the caffeine’s fault though, but predominantly the result of poor parenting of letting your kid down espresso shots before bedtime. So simply drinking coffee will not stunt growth, but drinking a lot as a growing child and losing sleep because of it will have some detrimental effects on your development. Also, losing one night’s sleep because of coffee isn’t going to stop growth, it has to be almost habitual. After all, no one freaks out about how sleep overs stunt growth. Now that I’m off my soap box, I’ll get back to the article.

The article also accurately addresses some of the negative side effects of caffeine:

“Case’s Kavanaugh noted that research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that caffeine altered mood and behavior in children — producing an increase in wakefulness and generating feelings of energy and sociability in low dosages, but generating anxiety, tension and insomnia in higher doses. The moderate dose in several cans of caffeinated soft drinks raised blood pressure significantly in children, she said, while decreasing heart rate.” [2]

This is all true, caffeine can have some nasty side effects on people depending on their tolerance and intake amount. However, letting your kid have a Coca-Cola isn’t going to hospitalize him, or even give him anxiety. Parents should recognize however, that caffeine has become more popular in recent years and that it isn’t always safe to let young kids have it as they may not understand the side effects and possibility of caffeine overdose.

Overall, I would say that this article is quite informative and factual on caffeine, but it seems to be trying to convince parents that all caffeine is bad for children. Now again, I certainly don’t recommend letting your kid snort lines of coffee grounds before bedtime, but a soda every now and then is fine, and some kids (and adults) can become more attentive and focused after in taking caffeine. So I certainly recommend checking this article out (its not long at all), but remind you that caffeine does have positive effects, and of course that anything in excess can cause harm.

I’ll try to get the article scanned and uploaded here, as it has a table of popular drinks and caffeine content as well as some other information.

Sources cited:
1. Feran, Tom. “This is not kid stuff.” The Plain Dealer. 11 March 2008.
2. Feran, Tom. “This is not kid stuff.” The Plain Dealer. 11 March 2008.