health
parenthood
Does drinking coffee really stop growth in children?
You have believed in it for so long that it will be difficult for you to be convinced - but caffeine does not inhibit growth in children and coffee is probably healthier than most of the drinks you do allow them to drink.
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coffee
caffeine
Child Development
Walla!
health
Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 07:47
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The bitter taste of coffee in advance is not very attractive for children, but that is not why they do not drink coffee.
We always seem to know that children should not drink coffee because it can impair their growth.
Do recent studies still support this supposition?
Many of you will be surprised to hear that the answer is no.
There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that drinking coffee or caffeine consumption in general inhibits development or growth in children.
A person's potential height is affected by many but different factors.
For example, so far scientists have been able to identify hundreds of different genes that have been found to be responsible for about 16 percent of the final height that a person will reach in adulthood.
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The general health status of children is also a key factor in influencing their future height.
For example, studies have shown that recurrent infections in early childhood can slow down the nutritional intake of infants and thus delay their bone growth - which can adversely affect the growth process for their height.
Growth inhibitor coffee?
There is no proof of this.
A child drinks a hot drink (Photo: ShutterStock)
The relationship between nutrition and growth is even more specific than that, because even the access that children have to certain nutritional sources in their early years of life also greatly affects their height, and thus to the mother’s diet during pregnancy.
Why, then, have people been perceived to drink coffee as a growth inhibitor in children?
The caffeine myth of the 80s
The truth is, no one really knows for sure, but there are of course some hypotheses.
In the 1980s, several studies were published that suggested that those who drank coffee regularly were at increased risk for osteoporosis, because caffeine could increase calcium leakage (although, even in these studies, the effect was small).
These studies may have led people to conclude that if caffeine can weaken the bones of adults, then its consumption in childhood may impair growth.
But there was another factor that played a significant role in these studies, and that is that adults who drank coffee tended to consume less milk - an important source of calcium.
In other words, the minimal effect on calcium leakage was probably due to low milk intake rather than drinking coffee.
And another study published later at Harvard found no link between drinking coffee and calcium leakage.
Over the years, a variety of studies have been conducted that have attributed a host of health benefits and disadvantages to caffeine consumption, which has only added to the general public confusion.
Studies on the health benefits and disadvantages of caffeine have only further confused the public.
A boy measures his height (Photo: ShutterStock)
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Another theory that may explain the widespread belief that coffee impairs the growth of children, is the fact that pregnant women are advised to limit their caffeine intake.
This recommendation stems in part from a number of relatively small studies that have found a link between the degree of caffeine exposure of fetuses and an increased chance of miscarriage and low birth weight.
Since these are studies conducted on very small sample groups, these are not unequivocal findings, but health organizations around the world prefer (rightly) to go for sure and therefore there is a recommendation to limit caffeine consumption in pregnancy.
But this recommendation apparently underwent some adaptation by public opinion and concluded that if caffeine could be harmful to fetal growth, it is probably also dangerous for children who have long since left the womb.
"The biology of a fetus and the way it gets its nutrition through the placenta is very different from how these things work in a sustainable person. The metabolism is also different. You can't tap on each other," explains Devin Mallor, a nutritionist at Aston University in the UK.
Probably healthier for your kids than juice or soda.
Cold coffee (Photo: Giphy)
"Weak coffee is not really a big deal. Some of the bitter flavors in coffee are very similar to the flavors found in some vegetables. So it's not necessarily a bad idea to accustom children to these flavors. I probably wouldn't recommend letting kids drink strong coffee drinks, but the truth is "Coffee is a much healthier drink than all kinds of sugary drinks and juices that children drink," Mallor said in an interview with Live Science.
Of course as with any other matter, moderation and regulation are the keywords.
There is really no need to start including your toddlers in ordering your monthly coffee capsules.
Although caffeine is not harmful to growth and development, it can have other harmful effects, such as increased anxiety, high blood pressure and reflux, and as many know, it can also disrupt sleep.
And these are the reasons why the American Association of Pediatricians recommends that young children avoid drinking coffee and adolescents consume it in moderation.
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