The placebo effect of candy and chocolate for young children is so strong that the minds link between candy and pleasure takes over from the very real pain the child is feeling.Īlthough the evidence suggests that sugar itself doesn't hype kids up, parents aren't imagining things. This isn't the child faking it, nor was the child's suffering unreal. We've all seen a child go from severe distress to smiles when a candy or chocolate is offered. This is never more evident than when a child is hurt or sad and a parent offers candy consolation. If the mind believes something to be true it can easily create a physical response in line with that belief. The power of the mind over the body is a well known fact. This is not to say that a person is faking, not at all. The second possibility is that parents and children expect sugar to translate into hyperactivity and so it does – the placebo effect. A sugar rush will only be experienced by a person low in glucose which is necessary for proper body function. This will only occur if iron levels are low and the same is true for glucose. For example, an anaemic person (a person with low iron) will feel lethargic and when a couple of iron tablets are taken they will feel a rush of energy very quickly. This is similar to the replenishment of many other nutrients that the body requires. The first is that if a persons glucose levels are low, the ingestion of glucose into the body will feel like a sugar rush resulting in an increased burst of energy. There are two probabilities for this happening. While this has been proved an old wives tale, many parents will nonetheless swear to the fact that their kids go bonkers on sugar. So rather than having a “sugar rush”, the science says people probably feel worse after eating sugar.Despite evidence to the contrary many parents still believe that sugar causes hyperactivity in their kids so they won't give them candy. They discovered that eating sugary foods can give you a “sugar crash”!Īfter feeding some people lots of sugar, the people said they felt really tired one hour after eating their sweet treats. Some scientists have looked at what happens to your body after eating lots of sugar. So if you are at a party and feeling energetic after eating some cake, lollies and soft drink, it might be because you’re having a good time with your friends and having fun! But a ‘sugar crash’ is a real thing

Instead, they think people just get happy and energetic from enjoying a treat, sugary or not. These experiments helped scientists discover that a “sugar rush” is a myth.

It’s hard to tell if kids have had a sugary snack or something without sugar. Most parents even thought their child had a sugary snack, when they hadn’t! Then the parents had to guess if their child was given something sugary, or non-sugary.Īfter watching their child play, most parents couldn’t tell which snack their child had. To test if a “sugar rush” is real, scientists have done some experiments.įirst the scientists gave some children a snack, but they didn’t tell their parents what they gave them. This means your muscles and organs can use the right amounts of sugar to make energy when they need it. In fact, your body likes to keep the amount of sugar in your blood steady – not too much and not too little. Your body doesn’t use all the sugar you eat at once, it’s very good at storing sugar for use later. Health Check: how much sugar is it OK to eat? All that extra energy might cause someone to do lots of activity like running and jumping. The muscles and organs use the sugar to make energy. Your body then transports the sugar in your bloodstream to your muscles and organs, like your heart and brain. This is because sugar is taken up into your blood quickly after eating. They thought this because people would be happier, and have lots of energy after eating sweet treats. Scientists used to think eating sugary foods and having a “sugar rush” meant sugar would give you lots of fuel to break down into energy. Patrick Fore/Unsplash Why did people think sugar rushes were real?

Sugar rush candy