Phys Ed: Are Sports Drinks Actually Good for Kids?

By Gretchen Reynolds
 
A few summers ago, researchers from the University of Connecticut’s Department of Kinesiology showed up at youth soccer and football camps on the East Coast to study the kids’ drinking habits. What they found was that the young athletes, aged 9-16, didn’t drink enough. Most of them, in fact, had arrived at the camps dehydrated to one degree or another, and proceeded to dry themselves out far more over the course of the four-day camps. Practicing on average three times a day, the kids became progressively more dehydrated day by day, as measured by the concentration of their **** and by declines in their body weight, despite the fact that water was available during every practice session. By the end of the camps, between 50 and 75 percent of the 128 kids were at least “significantly” dehydrated, and in 25 to 30 percent of these, the condition was “serious...”

Full story:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/phys-ed-are-sports-drinks-actually-good-for-kids/?em