Children who lead a healthy lifestyle can harm their health by drinking many refreshing and sweetened sports drinks, researchers from the Center for Healthy Living at the University of Texas (USA) say,.

"Children and their parents mistakenly regard these drinks as useful, despite the high sugar content and the lack of any other nutritional value," says Nalini Ranjit, the study's lead author. The study will be published in the October issue of the journal "Pediatrics".

Researchers examined the relationship between consumption of sweetened drinks, healthy and unhealthy foods and physical activity in teens.

Sweetened drinks contain sugar or corn syrup and include many varieties of carbonated and non-aerated drinks. Scientists do not classify 100% fruit juice as sweetened drinks.

Children who lead a healthy lifestyle, often used flavored and sports drinks, while children who lead a less healthy lifestyle, often drank fizzy drinks.

"Sports drinks are successfully advertised as something related to a healthy lifestyle. In this case, they have very little fruit juice and a lot of extra calories, "- says Nalini Ranjit.

"The constant use of sweetened drinks increases the weight.

Just one lemonade a day is 4 kilograms of excess weight per year, "says the scientist. At the same time, healthy nutrition specialists also do not recommend that children drink more than one glass of juice per day, even if it is 100 percent fruit juice. The fact is that the juice is also quite caloric. Sports drinks are recommended only during extreme physical exertion. In other cases it is better to drink water, and a fresh fruit is more useful than fruit juice.

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