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Children and soft drinks

QuarkChild

Critical Thinker
Q
Joined
Nov 19, 2002
Messages
354
Terminology warning: What this Californian is calling "soft drinks" might be called soda or coke in other parts of the country/world.

I was at an airport a few months ago, and saw a little kid who could not have been more than 4 years old or so drinking a soft drink. I personally find this repulsive, but I am open to the suggestion that there could be a perfectly good reason why a parent might allow it. (Although, to be honest, I can't think of any.) So anyway, I have a question for all of the parents here: Do you give your children soft drinks, and if so, when and why?

inspired by the coke/pepsi thread
 
(What you call soft drinks, this Southern boy calls coke... everything is coke...)

I dont see anything wrong with parents giving their children cokes. Sure, its not as healthy as Snapple products, but its not at all bad.

The problem comes later in the teenage years. I'm a teacher, I work at a school, since my school installed these new coke vending machines, there has been a 300% increase in dehydration related incidents.

If I had children, I'd buy my kids cokes. Of course, the coke isnt going to replace milk or water. Coke is in the same catergory as snack foods (I know this because its at the apex of the food guide pyramid... Keebler cookies, thank you so much for teaching me about the food guide pyramid :) ) and should be treated as such.

....but I am open to the suggestion that there could be a perfectly good reason why a parent might allow it.
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Coke tastes good. Its the same reason you might buy your kids a pack of gum. Gum obviously has no nutritional value, but it's delicious, so you give your kids the gum anyway.
 
I didn't let any of my children drink sodas until they were 10 or so. Partly I didn't want them getting all the sugar and caffiene, and partly I didn't want them developing the lifelong habit of reaching for a Coke whenever they're thirsty.

It worked perfectly. Two of them are teenagers now and drink probably one coke a day, compared to the MANY I would drink when I was their age.
 
I use soda/soft drinks/coke as a treat. To my thinking it is the same as a few cookies. You eat a good meal, have healthy snacks, lots of milk and juice and a small cup of soda makes a nice treat.

Like anything else, it's a matter of how much, how often.



Boo
 
I'd be the first to admit that I'm am addicted to caffine (or softdrinks in general)

All the highschools in the area have partnerships with either coke or pepsi, and now that I have a job, I always have enough spare change to purchase a pop at the start of the day (in place of coffee or tea). I got so that I was drinking at least 1.5 Liters of vanilla coke, pepsi blue, or coke a day last semester. Then we went on a school camping trip for a week, where I had no access to soft drinks of any kind. I started shaking by the 3rd day, presumably from withdrawl. I had to eat my emergency chocolate just to stop shaking.

Ever since, I have limited my caffene intake, and have been drinking as much water as possible.
 
Completely unrelated, but I notice all the different "dialects" of English all across the country. Maybe its just me, but I call everything coke. I'm impartial to the word "soda". I really dont like the word "pop". Something about hearing the words "sodapop" just pisses me off. At least I havent come across a truely compulsive individual who calls it "sodapopcoke"... I dont know what I'd do then...
 
Get a life - the child was 4 years old! That's plenty old enough to enjoy a coke.

Heck, when my wife and I were kids, the cure for an upset stomach was pure Syrup of Coke (all drugstores sold it).

It figures this thread would come from California - if that upsets you like that, a bit of advice: don't ever come to New Jersey. The sight of a kid eating a cheese steak would give you a stroke.
 
SteveW said:
Get a life - the child was 4 years old! That's plenty old enough to enjoy a coke.
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I knew it was just a matter of time before someone pounced on me. :)

It's mostly the dental effects that bother me. I doubt that drinking soft drinks once in a while on special occasions would permanently harm a child's teeth, but it seems to me that parents are putting their kids at higher risk of dental cavities if they make soft drinks available on a regular basis.

I don't know what a cheese steak is. Maybe we don't have those in California.
 
QuarkChild said:


I don't know what a cheese steak is. Maybe we don't have those in California.
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Next time your at a local grill look at the "Philadelphia Cheese Steak" on the menu. It does not resemble a true Philly cheesesteak, but points for trying.

Even California has a few places that serve 'em, yup, even Santa Cruz.
 
kookbreaker said:


Next time your at a local grill look at the "Philadelphia Cheese Steak" on the menu. It does not resemble a true Philly cheesesteak, but points for trying.

Even California has a few places that serve 'em, yup, even Santa Cruz.
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Well I don't remember it on the Saturn Cafe menu last time I delivered QuarkChild to Santa Cruz. Good vegan nachoes tho!

Now how long does it take to dissolve a nail in one of those colas?

I was hooked on caffeinated colas once, what made me quit was the cost. How stupid to pay so much for carbonated acidic sugar water. My liquid vice is now tea (green, oolong and black) Love those flavanoids!

Sure as an infrequent treat cola is OK for kids. Probably about the same age when you would allow them to drink coffee.
 
QuarkDad said:


Well I don't remember it on the Saturn Cafe menu last time I delivered QuarkChild to Santa Cruz. Good vegan nachoes tho!
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Bah! You need a grill. Not silly cafe!
 
QuarkDad said:
Now how long does it take to dissolve a nail in one of those colas?
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The same length of time as it does in orange juice.

To protect yourself from this, follow this rule: when you take a drink of soda (or orange juice), don't hold it in your mouth for weeks at a time. Instead, swallow it.
 
QuarkChild said:
It's mostly the dental effects that bother me. I doubt that drinking soft drinks once in a while on special occasions would permanently harm a child's teeth, but it seems to me that parents are putting their kids at higher risk of dental cavities if they make soft drinks available on a regular basis.
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This reminds me of a myth I heard when I was young about how if you place a tooth in a cup of Coke and leave it there for a certain about of time (a day, I think), the Coke will dissolve (or at least badly corrode) the tooth. I found that hard to believe, so I tried it with a baby tooth I lost. I set it in a styrofoam cup and filled it a quarter of the way with Coke. After a week, the Coke was nearly dried up and all sticky, but the tooth showed absolutely no change at all - except the exposed areas looked somewhat whiter.

In any case, I agree that subjecting your children to a higher sugar intake is asking for cavities; however, proper dental hygeine should intercept any adverse effects before they occur.
 
<This reminds me of a myth>

Would you please try that with some orange juice - THANKS
 
I have a 7 and 9 year old. They get 100% juice with breakfast lunch and dinner. If we are out at a party or have one in our home we allow them to have soda/soft drinks. We also let them have it once in a blue moon such as when they get a good report card and we let them have Burger King food.

Most things in moderation are OK.
 
of course 12 oz of soda has about the same sugar as 12 oz of juice or fruit drinks and will give your kid the same sugar rush as well. read the nutrition label.

don't think youre doing your kids any favors by giving them juice. much better off giving them an apple or orange.

and some parents seem to think if you stick some fruit flavored chemicals in a drink box it becomes healthy ("but it has vitamin C!"oh, puh-leeze). just as bad as soda but without the carbonation.
 
I think soda has become a bugaboo unfairly.

The main things in it are sugar and water. Same as in juice.

Coke does not dissolve teeth or nails. Run the experiment yourself if you are the type to believe in urban legends. All it takes is a coke and a nail. Amazing what folks will take on faith without testing even the simplest experiment.

Yes, Coke has caffiene, so does chocolate. There is also caffiene free Coke, which tastes just the same.

The real issue is raising children to eat a balanced diet. A 20 oz bottle of Coke is 250 calories. That's 50 calories LESS than the same size apple juice. Both are fine unless your child is overweight or has other problems with their diet. Serious sugar od'ing can cause diabetes, but a Coke or two won't cause that. Make sure they are getting all their nutrients, because you won't get any from coke.

My take on kids and sugar is this: Kids crave sugar because they're running around like crazy all the time, and they need energy that they can metabolize quickly. I don't think it's any coincidence that most of those sugar cravings go away when we grow older. I know I can't stand Froot Loops cereal anymore.

Just make sure they're eating a balanced diet, and not overweight, and they brush their teeth.
 
According to my dentist, it is the combination of acidity and sugar that makes soft drinks harmful. In theory, it sounds like brushing your teeth right afterward would prevent harm being done to the teeth. In practice, I don't know how many people brush their teeth after every coke they drink. I would think that would depend on whether the beverage was drunk with a meal or in between meals.

I've never heard him lecture on the Evils of Orange Juice....perhaps an oversight?
 
QuarkChild said:
I've never heard him lecture on the Evils of Orange Juice....perhaps an oversight?
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First they tell me drinking coke is going to rot my teeth, then evildave tells me reading the bible is going to rot my brain, now they are taking away my orange juice. Orange juice is delicious and nutricious, I will not stand for such insolence!

WHAAAAA!!!!

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHN!

(I'm just being melodramatic :D)
 
Orange juice has much more acid and almost as much sugar as coke.

Tell that dentist to speak to a nutritionist.


Orange juice pH 3.0

Coke pH 5.5, much less acidic.

(7 is neutral pH, ie water)
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/acid.asp


A study by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry concluded that Coke and Diet coke does not reach the critical pH which is expected for enamel demineralization and dissolution.
 
Silicon said:
A study by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry concluded that Coke and Diet coke does not reach the critical pH which is expected for enamel demineralization and dissolution.
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I found the AAPD article about it online, but I couldn't find the date on the study, so I'm not sure if that was before or after Coca-Cola paid them $1M. That would have to be taken into consideration, don't you think?

From http://newstribune.com/stories/030503/bus_0305030925.asp
(March 2003)
CHICAGO (AP) -- Coca-Cola Co. is giving a $1 million grant to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry in a deal critics say conflicts with the group's efforts to fight tooth decay....
The deal, announced Monday on the academy's Web site, was decried by some health experts because of evidence connecting excessive consumption of soft drinks to children's cavities....
The arrangement is a conflict of interest, said Dr. Jonathan Shenkin, a pediatric dentistry resident at the University of Iowa. Shenkin led research published in January suggesting that the sugar and acidic content in soft drinks wear down tooth enamel.
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Cool! Scandal!


It doesn't change the fact that the pH of orange juice is way more acidic than Coca Cola.


Or did Coke also pay off the makers of litmus paper? ;-)
 
Oh, and if we're going to start assailing foods because of their level of acidity, and use coke as the dividing line, well...

Get ready for a very bland diet:


No Apples, no apricots, no Bananas, no berrys, no buttermilk! no cherrys, no crenberrys, no dill pickles, no curry paste, no eggplant, No fruit coctail, no lime, no lemon, no grapes, no jam or jelly, No ketchup, no lemon, no maple syrup, no acidopohilus milk, No nectarines, no olives, no oranges, no pears, no peppers, no pineapple, no plums, no pomegranets, no mashed potatoes, no prunes, no pumpkin, no saurkraut, no tomatoes, no.....


Well, you get the picture!

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/lacf-phs.html
 
As long as we're bringing up extraneous issues, let me move away from the original "children and soft drinks" question and share something I just found on google:

Annual US soft drink consumption: 56 billion gallons (1998)
Annual US orange juice consumption: 1.4 billion gallons (1997)

Sources:

http://jan.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/erssor/specialty/fts-bb/1997/fts281s.txt

http://www.ljworld.com/section/take_a_stand/story/134965

Not really relevant to the topic at hand, of course, but I thought it was interesting.
 
QuarkChild said:

Annual US soft drink consumption: 56 billion gallons (1998)
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That's is a lot of fizzy sugar water!!! Now who is drinking my 200 gallons per year. Thank G*d that little kid in the airport is helping out!

Before someone calculates the true per capita consumption just let me state that is an guesstimate.

QuarkChild - perhaps you could find some less controversial subjects, you just can't be questioning everyones parenting skills like this. I regret not cutting your Emilac now with some coke or pepsi to make you more normal. We just didn't know!
 
QuarkDad said:

QuarkChild - perhaps you could find some less controversial subjects, you just can't be questioning everyones parenting skills like this. I regret not cutting your Emilac now with some coke or pepsi to make you more normal. We just didn't know!
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What's Emilac?

I know you are being facetious, but for the record:

The original intent of my thread was to get some perspective from actual parents on the question of making soft drinks available to kids. Since I'm not raising kids myself, I thought that perhaps there were issues that I was not aware of and wanted to get the full story so that I would not be tempted to judge people without knowing where they were coming from.

I did not intend for it to become a debate on the evidence of adverse health effects of soft drinks--if that had been my goal, I would have opened the topic in the science forum. I am much more interested in hearing from parents and how they approach the issue on a personal level.

btw--Using census data from 2000, your figure of 200 gal/person is almost exactly right. I calculated 198 gallons.
 
In the real world with children there are going to be times that they will want soda. The trick is to make sure that they have a healthy diet, brush regularly and get dental care.

When they eat meals they want something to drink. Other than water, which they won't always drink, I can't think of a more natural drink besides Juice.
 
QuarkChild said:
So anyway, I have a question for all of the parents here: Do you give your children soft drinks, and if so, when and why?
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We have an almost-4-year-old child.

Coke/Pepsi? - I don't think she's ever had them.
Other carbonated soft drinks? - very occasionally - splitting a really nice root beer with Mom, say - it's a special treat.
Non-carbonated? Lemonade once in a while.

We take drinks with us when we're out and about. You're likely to see her drinking soy milk or water out of a sports bottle.

We're not anti-sugar zealots - my wife has quite a sweet tooth, and indulges it. We're just not big on soft drinks, though, and that's reflected in what our daughter drinks. We're also not big on fast food (places where, IMHO, the notion that drink=soft drink is often established and/or reinforced).

_Q_
 
Yeah, I'm not really crazy about the idea of giving any young child any amount of a sugary beverage (inculding juice and chocolate/strawberry milks). It fills them up when they could be eating and drinking more healthy things.

I also rest comfortably in the knowledge that our baby (as of this she's 17 1/2 months old) hates soda. Just hates it. One day she was fussing becuase I had a glass of Pepsi in my hands. She hates not getting what Mum and Dad have, so I let her try some. She spit it right out, and hasn't fussed about it since.

I do let her drink fruit juice - diluted w/3 parts of water. She likes that just fine - always finishes her glass, and never whines when she sees it coming. Hopefully it'll always be like this, but I've got no illusions...
 
My son (7) drinks ~ 6 oz a day, but drinks primarily milk, juices and water.

Regarding the AAPD study, I haven't seen it. But there are numerous ADA-sponsored studies that show significant correlations between soft drink consumption and increased caries incidence. In general, liquids are less cariogenic than candies as the sugar and acid washes away quickly, if one sips it very gradually over a long period of time it would be more of a problem.

BTW, dental research is part of my occupation. Making sure your kids get adequate fluoride (either by water or supplementation - we have non-F well water so my son takes a vit + F supplement every day) will help protect the teeth from such products.
 
The problem comes later in the teenage years. I'm a teacher, I work at a school, since my school installed these new coke vending machines, there has been a 300% increase in dehydration related incidents.
Click to expand...

See this is the problem here. Somehow people think that since something is liquid it will quench your thirst. Caffine and sugar dehydrate you!

I personally don't really like anything that has added sugar. I eat fruit, it is naturally sweet and yummy and not dyed some neon color. I drink tons of water too. Water for some darn reason tends to quench my thirst, although I can't put my finger on why! If you enjoy carbonated drinks may I suggest seltzer waters and naturally flavored seltzer water. The best thing is to drink seltzer water while eating fruit so then you get sugars, carbonation, and hydration. Plus you still get to beelch which I think is why many people enjoy coke!
 
This thread reminds me of a funny incident that sort of sums up the bad rap sodas get even when it's unwarranted.

My wife and I went out to breakfast with her brother and his wife and kids. When they told us they were out of orange juice, my wife and I both ordered a diet soda.

My sister-in-law went on and on to her kids about how terrible it was that we would drink soda for breakfast.

She quickly simmered down when I compared our diet sodas to the apple juice she gave her kids or the coffee she and her husband were having with 2-3 creamers and 2-3 packs of sugar in each.
 
prettygirlsmakegrave said:


See this is the problem here. Somehow people think that since something is liquid it will quench your thirst. Caffine and sugar dehydrate you!
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Whahuhwha?!!?


That doesn't make sense.

Coffee does have a small diuretic effect, so drinking a cup of coffee has the net effect of drinking a little less than a cup of water.

It's not a net loss from your body.

How does sugar dehydrate you? Is there a way that sugar pulls water from your body? Sugar isn't a diuretic. And no way can a coke pull more water from your body than it puts in.

Net/net, drinking 20oz's of Coke MAYBE MAYBE is the same as drinking 19 1/2 oz's of water.

Except you get the sugar and sodium which replenish the body as well.

What do you think's in Gatorade, after all?
Sucrose, fructose, glucose, 110mg sodium, 30mg potassium
 
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