Could Energy Drinks Be Zapping the Life Right Out of You?

A good tip you can follow to improve family wellness, is to teach your children about junk food. When you go to the supermarket, you can play a game where you try and find the junkiest of all the junk food, to teach them not only about their physical health, but also how their mental wellness is targeted by clever marketing. This is easy to play with food targeted at children, due to the sheer volume of colours and cartoon characters on the packaging, but when you get to junk food geared towards adults, it is a little trickier.

Energy drinks tend to come in shiny cans and bottles with claw marks and flames, presumably to promote dynamic and powerful ideals. In recent years, the popularity of energy drinks with teenagers and adults alike has soared, but if you do often reach for a can for your energy boost your wellbeing could be in jeopardy. Allegedly, a 14-year-old girl died recently from heart arrhythmia after drinking two 24-ounce cans of Monster Energy, a hugely popular energy drink. Monster had a lawsuit was filed against them, as the company was accused of failing to warn of the potential risks of this drink.

The risks come from the excessive levels of caffeine in popular energy drinks. Young people and people with existing heart problems are at a particular risk to drinking large quantities of caffeine, but it can pose a threat to anyone’s wellbeing. Caffeine interferes with sleep, causes anxiety, raises your heartbeat and increases your risk of dehydration. According to a report published in the Journal of Paediatrics in 2011 entitled Health Effects of Energy Drinks on Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults, the consequences of drinking energy drinks include ‘palpitations, seizures, strokes, and even sudden death.’

Companies are not transparent about the exact content of caffeine in their products, as they often market them as supplements, rather than as foods, which means they can get around FDA regulations and labelling laws. Therefore, don’t just educate your children about better wellness, but increase your awareness of how companies manipulate the truth, and you, to sell their products.