Your child could be an addict. Kids consume way more caffeine than parents realize, says Avram Goldstein, a professor emeritus of pharmacology at Stanford University. Without their daily dose of caffeine, they're sluggish, sleepy and achy. The kids, that is.
Some kids drink the equivalent of four cups of coffee a day.
Now not many grade-schoolers are actually java junkies. Their caffeinated drink of choice is likely to be cola, often with a chocolate bar chaser, courtesy of school vending machines. He then asked them all to swear off the stuff for a day. The students recorded how they felt when they were caffeinated and when they were not. While they weren't exactly mainlining the stuff, some of the kids did consume as much caffeine in a day as an adult who drank four cups of coffee.