WASHINGTON: As temperatures heat up and we sprint to the Olympic opening ceremonies, sports drink marketing is at a fever pitch.
Coca-Cola, owner of Powerade and Vitaminwater, is the longest continuous Olympics sponsor, and the company is clearly onto something. Children across the globe aspire to be as fast, strong and skilled as Olympic athletes, so marketing Powerade as the drink of an Olympic winner is certainly a gold-medal strategy.
Commercial sports drinks were initially designed for athletes who, like the Olympians, train and sweat so vigorously that they sufficiently deplete their bodies to require the rehydration and calorie replenishment these drinks provide. But here’s the thing: the elite athlete market is tiny and our children, even the most athletic ones, are not part of it.
Powerade and Gatorade wouldn’t be in big business if the only people who consumed their products were those who actually needed them. When these companies expand their markets to include all children who play sports, parents who believe the hype that their kids need to replace electrolytes and adults who think they are making a healthy choice by skipping the soda in favour of a “recharging” sports drink, the companies are suddenly pole-vaulting into money.
The sports drink market was recently estimated at a whopping $6.81 billion (R95bn). Children and adults want something to drink besides water, and they want it to fulfil the righteous promises of rehydration and replenishment. This is why companies such as Honest Tea and Greater Than have entered the market with healthier sports drinks that are lower in sugar and free of artificial food colourings, and why Dr Pepper recently bought 11.7% of BodyArmor for $20 million.
Are these new drinks actually healthy? And will kids drink them? I did a blind tasting of six sports drinks (Honest Sport, Greater Than, Aspire, BodyArmor, Gatorade and Powerade) with my boys and their friends. Then I drilled into the nutrition facts and ingredients list for each product. Here’s what I found:
The taste test
To my dismay (but not to my surprise), the children blindly chose Powerade and Gatorade as their favourites. After all, these varieties are the sweetest and the most chemically engineered to cause consumers to come back for more.
The verdict
Just because the big brands want us to drink their products and consumers are buying them, it does not mean the facts have changed:
l The American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that “routine ingestion of carbohydrate-containing sports drinks by children and adolescents should be avoided or restricted; water, not sports drinks, should be the principal source of hydration".
l Children rarely lose enough electrolytes during their athletic endeavours to require extra replenishment. Sodium is the most common electrolyte lost in sweat, yet most Americans get more than enough of it from their diets.
l Many sports drinks contain as much sugar and as many chemicals as soda.
l Some sports drink bottles contain two or 2½ servings, so the grams of sugar listed on the nutrition facts panel may need to be multiplied.
l Children do not lose vitamins when they sweat, so Vitaminwater and similar drinks are unnecessary.
Water paired with a banana or an orange is undeniably a better choice than any sports drink. These fruits are higher in potassium and many other minerals and vitamins than commercial drinks.
No child benefits from 20-plus grams of added sugar and chemical flavourings after a one-hour game.
If sports drinks are a must
If I personally craved a sports drink, the latest Greater Than products would be my choice. I enjoy the coconut water flavour, and these products are the healthiest sports drinks I found on the market.
If a sports drink is a must for my kids and their friends, Honest Sport wins. Honest Tea’s products are certified organic, which means the company is required to comply with a list of approved ingredients and flavourings.
Aspire is lower in sugar, but includes the artificial sweeteners stevia leaf extract and erythritol. Neither of these sweeteners raises blood sugar or insulin levels, and very little is needed to manufacture a sweet taste.
Because sports drinks are firmly entrenched in our modern culture, and because my children get weary toting their reusable bottles of water, I am relieved to have healthier options to offer them.
l Seidenberg is co-founder of Nourish Schools, a Washington-based nutrition education company and co-author of The Super Food Cards