YMCA Healthy Living Magazine, powered by n4 food and health Summer 2017 | Page 6

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR TIM CROWE, AdvAPD
Tim Crowe is a nutrition academic within the school of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at
Deakin University and also an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian. His teaching areas
are in nutritional physiology and biochemistry, as well as the applied role of nutrition in
disease prevention and management, particularly obesity, diabetes and cancer. To learn
more about Tim visit www.thinkingnutrition.com.au or www.n4foodandhealth.com

SUGAR AND
HYPERACTIVITY
IN KIDS

Nutrition expert Professor Tim Crowe busts the myth that sugar causes hyperactivity.
he connection between sugar
and hyperactivity is one of the
most popular food/behaviour
myths going around, yet it is one that
has been well and truly busted by
science. Where there’s sugar, there
must be hyperactive kids – or so says
conventional wisdom. Science,
however, says otherwise.

T

Any parent would tell you that seeing
children fuelling up on sugar-laden
cake, lollies and soft drinks at a
birthday party is a sure-fire recipe for a
bunch of rampaging hyperactive kids.
A bunch of published randomised
controlled studies have been unable to
find any difference in behaviour between
children who ate sugar (from lollies,
chocolate or natural sources) and those
who did not. Even studies that included
children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) could not
detect any meaningful difference
between the behaviour of children
who ate sugar compared with
those who did not.

their child’s behaviour as more
hyperactive, even if the drink did not
actually contain any sugar.
So why do kids seem so hyperactive
when they consume an abundance of
sugar? It all comes down to context.
When kids are having fun at birthday
parties, on holidays or at family
celebrations, sugar-laden food is
frequently served. It’s the fun, freedom and
contact with other kids that makes them
hyperactive, rather than the food they ar