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The Truth About Kids Getting ‘Hyped Up’ on Sugar
It’s not the candy — it’s the confirmation bias
It’s nearly the scariest night of the year—that terrible evening where good, hardworking folks are terrorized by tiny children who are after only one thing: human flesh.
Sorry, I mean candy. They’re after candy.
The science shows pretty conclusively that sugar itself doesn’t make children hyperactive.
On Halloween, we engage in a wonderful ritual. First, children dress up and parents everywhere call them adorable and cute. Then, they go around the neighborhood trick-or-treating, and similar parents pay them in sweets and call them adorable and cute all over again. Finally, the children come home, gorge themselves on their sweet hoard, and go wild with all that sugar. Every parent knows this.
Except, the evidence doesn’t stack up. The science shows pretty conclusively that sugar itself doesn’t make children hyperactive.
The grand urban myth is just that: a myth.
The sugar hypothesis is fairly simple: We burn sugar for energy. Eating a lot of simple sugars means that you process them very quickly and, thus, should have a big spike of energy — which in kids can be exhibited…
