Surely you’ve heard that you shouldn’t give them too much candy at parties because they become uncontrollable.
There is an idea that sugar affects behavior, and there are several theories as to why this occurs, such as that children may be allergic to sugar or have abnormal patterns of blood glucose levels. But the evidence for a link between sugar consumption and hyperactivity is weak.
The most complete study on the subject was carried out in 1995, at John Hopkins University in the United States. The authors did two types of research: They gave artificial sweetener to several children without their parents knowing whether they ate real sugar or not, and then followed up on them. The other experiment focused on children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or another condition to see if sugar affected them particularly. And the analysis failed to show that sugar affects behavior.
Another study from the University of Kentucky tried to test the expectation of parents who thought that sugar had a negative effect on their children. In the experiment, half of the mothers were led to believe that their children were drinking something sugary. To the other half, they revealed that the drinks contained no sugar.
When asked to observe and rate their children’s behavior, those who thought they had consumed sugar said they were more hyperactive than those who knew they had taken a placebo. But what the scientists noticed is that those who believed that their children had taken too much sugar stayed closer to them, so it seems that sugar does not change the behavior of children but that of mothers.