Sugar makes children hyperactive
| Sugar makes children hyperactive | |
|---|---|
| UNSUPPORTED | |
| "Eating sugar, such as sweets, cake and soft drinks, causes children to become hyperactive, excitable and badly behaved." | |
| Domain | Health & Medicine |
| Tactic | Pseudoscience / Junk Science False Context |
| Era | Historical |
| First seen | 1970s |
| Origin | Popular parenting advice from the 1970s, influenced by diets that blamed food additives and sugar for behavior problems |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-27 |
| Further reading: books on Health & Medicine | |
The claim that sugar makes children hyperactive is one of the most widely held beliefs among parents and teachers. Many adults are convinced that children become wild after birthday cake or Halloween candy. Yet carefully controlled studies, in which neither children, parents nor researchers knew who had received sugar, have consistently found that sugar does not affect children's behavior or attention. Research suggests the belief itself shapes what adults see: parents who think their child has eaten sugar rate the child as more hyperactive, even when the child has had none. There are good reasons to limit sugar, but hyperactivity is not one of them.
The claim
The belief holds that sugar causes a "sugar rush," leading to bursts of energy, restlessness, inattention and misbehavior, especially in young children. It is sometimes linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with claims that sugar causes or worsens the condition.
Origin
In the 1970s the American allergist Benjamin Feingold proposed that food additives, such as artificial colors and flavors, caused hyperactivity, and promoted a restrictive diet. Sugar became associated with the same concerns. Anecdotes from parties and holidays, where children are given sweets in exciting settings, seemed to confirm the idea, and it spread through parenting books and media.
What the evidence shows
- Blinded trials. In a 1994 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, Mark Wolraich and colleagues placed children, including some whose parents described them as sensitive to sugar, on diets high in sugar or sweetened with aspartame or saccharin for several weeks. Neither the families nor the researchers knew which diet each child was on. The researchers found no differences in behavior or cognitive performance.
- Meta-analysis. A 1995 meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Wolraich, David Wilson and J. Wade White examined sixteen double-blind studies and concluded that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children, though the authors could not rule out a small effect in some individuals.
- Expectation effects. In a 1994 study by Daniel Hoover and Richard Milich, mothers were told that their sons had been given a large dose of sugar, when in fact all the boys had received a sugar-free placebo. Mothers who believed their child had eaten sugar rated him as more hyperactive and were more critical and controlling during play.
The evidence on food additives is more mixed. Some studies, notably a 2007 trial at the University of Southampton, found that certain artificial colors and a preservative may slightly increase hyperactivity in some children, leading to warning labels in the European Union. But this is a separate question from sugar.
Why it persists
- Context. Children often eat sugary foods at parties, holidays and celebrations, which are exciting in themselves. The setting, not the sugar, explains much of the behavior.
- Expectation. Adults who expect to see hyperactivity notice it more and interpret ordinary behavior through that lens.
- Confirmation bias. Parents remember the times their child seemed wild after sweets and forget the times nothing happened.
- A convenient explanation. Blaming sugar offers a simple, controllable cause for difficult behavior.
Lessons for readers
- Ask whether a claimed effect appears in blinded studies, where expectations cannot influence results.
- Consider whether the situation, rather than the substance, explains what you see.
- Expectations can change what we observe in others.
- Limit sugar for real health reasons, such as dental health and nutrition, rather than for behavior.
- Talk to a doctor about persistent behavior or attention concerns rather than relying on diet changes alone.
See also
- Listening to Mozart makes babies smarter
- Fat, not sugar, is the main dietary cause of heart disease
- Calling Bullshit (Bergstrom and West)
Sources
- Mark L. Wolraich et al., "Effects of diets high in sucrose or aspartame on the behavior and cognitive performance of children," New England Journal of Medicine 330, no. 5 (1994).
- Mark L. Wolraich, David B. Wilson and J. Wade White, "The effect of sugar on behavior or cognition in children: a meta-analysis," JAMA 274, no. 20 (1995).
- Daniel W. Hoover and Richard Milich, "Effects of sugar ingestion expectancies on mother-child interactions," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 22, no. 4 (1994).
- Donna McCann et al., "Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community," The Lancet 370, no. 9598 (2007).