All too often, Adelfio, PTA vice president at Chelsea Clinton's alma mater, has seen kids buying their morning meal from a campus soda machine. These days, soda pop and coffee drinks are virtually a rite of passage for many kids, beverages with a buzz for a generation bred on high- tech stimuli. While there has been much research on caffeine and fertility, pregnancy, osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease, there have been far fewer studies on caffeine and children. In adults, as in children, caffeine sensitivity differs widely, although some scientists believe that children, because they are generally smaller than adults, get a bigger bang from caffeinated products.
Caffeine has no toxic effects but can cause withdrawal symptoms after repeated use.
It is that withdrawal that concerns Gail Bernstein, director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Minnesota . In a recent study, she administered the equivalent of the amount of caffeine in about three soft drinks to 30 children, ages 8 to 12, daily for 13 days. Twenty-four hours after discontinuing the caffeine, she found deterioration in the children's performance on a computerized test. Griffiths has similar concerns, particularly since children, unlike adults, may have less control over a consistent supply of caffeinated beverages. He worries that older kids, whose bodies are going through hormonal gymnastics as it is, may be going in and out of caffeine withdrawal without even realizing it.