Most parents will say that their kids do not drink coffee or tea—so how can they be addicted to caffeine? Caffeine is in most drinks that children imbibe today, and the level of caffeine does not have to be disclosed on the nutrition food labels. If your child drinks 48 to 60 ounces of soft drinks a day, he can easily ingest over 200 mgs of caffeine (enough to induce spontaneous abortion in a pregnant female). Even caffeine-free means that a drink may be 97-98% caffeine free. A twelve-ounce can of cola contains over 50 milligrams of caffeine. Many candies also contain caffeine.
Why is there caffeine in most drinks? Because caffeine is a stimulant and it is highly addictive. Once the stimulant wears off, a mild depressive state sets in. This induces your child to crave more caffeine. That is why your kid wants to drink more soda after they just had a glass. (Here’s an interesting experiment: see how many glasses of water your child will drink, if they only had water to drink?). Unfortunately, the human body is highly resourceful and builds up a natural tolerance for stimulants. Thus, it takes more caffeine to keep your child stimulated as time goes on.
Caffeine upsets the normal sleep cycle of your children, induces fat buildup (and puts cellulite on female thighs), and has mild depressive aspects as well. But worst of all, it does not enhance problem solving ability or critical thinking processes. Rather, it can make a test taker more nervous and irritable.
Caffeine has to be broken down by the liver. Urinating cannot eliminate it. However, the human body is not aware of this and it continually tries to eliminate the pesticide by urination. And it will drive your child to use the bathroom. Using the bathroom during a standardized exam will result in the loss of critical minutes.
You should only reduce your child’s caffeine intake levels if you have at least 60 days prior to the exam date. If this is not the case, do NOT reduce your child’s caffeine intake three weeks or less prior to the actual exam date. Your child may enter a mild depres- sion that may not be resolved prior to the exam.
You are probably asking yourself, “Why don’t the other test services recommend this?” Other test services are ignorant of the effects of caffeine on adolescents. And some of BeatTheTest’s competitors are large media companies whose largest advertisers are the soft drink manufacturers. The fact is that there is not one media company brave enough to stand up to the soft drink manufacturers and ask them why caffeine, a mild pesticide, is continually added to children’s drinks and candies.
Reducing the level of caffeine in your child’s diet can also enhance weight balance as well as significantly reduce the risk of juvenile diabetes and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It amazes us at BeatTheTest that parents do not look at their European and Asian counterparts with respect to disease in children. Children around the world have remarkably lower levels of ADD and juvenile diabetes than American kids. Furthermore, few people outside of the United States have ever seen a 200-pound teenager.