Is Gatorade Good for Kids?

Article Highlights

• Sports drinks are a great way to replace glycogen and electrolytes lost during exercise
• Sports drinks are full of sugar and may increase the insulin response in kids who haven’t been exercising
• If you are going to exercise for 45 minutes or more, supplementing with a sports drink may be a good idea

Sports drinks are different from protein drinks, meal replacement drinks, vitamin drinks, recovery drinks, fitness waters, endurance drinks, and recreational drinks like Kool-Aid and colas.

Each drink has a specific purpose, but the purpose of quality sports drinks is three fold.

    1. Hydration

    2. Replacing glycogen stores (sugar that is stored in the liver and muscles)

    3. Replacing electrolytes

The Beginning of Sport Drinks

We will use Gatorade as our example because it was the first of the major sports drinks.

It was created by physicians and researchers at the University of Florida in 1965 to combat some of the problems facing the school’s football team.

The players were suffering from cramps, exhaustion and a host of other problems caused by training in the area’s hot and humid conditions.

The researchers discovered that the players were not drinking enough water or replacing the electrolytes and glycogen that was lost through sweat and exercise. (more…)