Not Like What Parents Ever Say – Actually Coffee Doesn’t Slow You Development – As I got older, I realized that what is considered the most common experience for children drinking coffee is being told that ‘Coffee will slow your development.
I would never have been dragged off the stage at Reunion Arena to Dallas Mavericks by the little things caused by coffee, which would have made the franchise’s failure at that point. Then I noticed.
Still, I’m willing to put my basketball career on hold because I want coffee, as all grown-ups do. It’s a blessing that my mother raised me so well (in my opinion) and let me have my cup of non-dairy coffee at the perfect time.
As a child, with each passing year, the amount of milk in my coffee cup became less and less until I reached 1m65 tall.
And you know what? Mom’s decision to let me drink coffee is backed up by science and people who have found no correlation between coffee consumption and height.
As discover magazine reports, concerns about growing children’s caffeine consumption are partly based on science, but mostly marketing.
The article notes that some studies have found that caffeine consumption can lead to less calcium absorption, which in children can “negatively affect bone mineralization.” body or hip bone density, thereby inhibiting growth.” However, the actual difference that the studies found was shown to be insignificant.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, to find the real culprit behind this story, you have to go back to the first half of the 20th century. In the early 1900s, Postum – a caffeine-free instant coffee substitute for coffee made from roasted wheat bran and molasses – started running ads “claiming that children should never drink coffee, including false claims about its health effects”.
An advertisement in 1933 went so far as to explicitly state, “drinking coffee will hinder a child’s development”. Of course, none of these claims by Postum is supported by science. Such baseless claims would find no place in the erudite, fact-based 21st century, but those were different times.
So what is the truth of the matter?
Did Manute Bol grow to 7’6″ without drinking even a few minutes of coffee? According to Discover, a 1998 Penn State University School of Medicine looked at this issue.
For the study, researchers tracked the caffeine consumption habits of 81 female subjects for six years, between 12 and 18, to see how it affected their growth. Subjects were divided into three categories based on their average daily caffeine consumption.
When comparing the groups at study completion, the researchers found “no correlation between caffeine intake and levels increase or average height of bone”. No adverse effects were found linking coffee and height.
However, the article notes that children should not consume caffeine entirely. Studies have found that caffeine consumption can affect children’s blood pressure, heart rate, sleep, and anxiety.
According to Discover, “The American Academy of Pediatrics generally discourages children from consuming caffeine,” Canada “recommends that children under the age of four avoid caffeine and sets a daily limit for caffeine consumption based on age and body weight.”.”