(3129) Caffeinated Kids
Jacob Abrahamse , Jairo Orlandi
Rhema Christian

Abstract


This project was inspired by the fact that we have observed that many children are drinking significant amounts of caffeine and sugar, despite the fact that most children wouldn t even dream of drinking coffee as it's an "adult drink", or even thought of as a "drug", of sorts. In fact, most parents would not likely allow their children to drink coffee as they are aware of the harmful effects of the caffeine in coffee, and of its addictive nature. It s interesting, though, that many children are allowed to drink such drinks as colas, iced-cappuccinos and energy drinks such as Red Bull . We wanted to find out for ourselves how these drinks affect the pulse of a healthy twelve or thirteen year boy or girl. We realize that the caffeine and sugar content in these drinks can also lead to other effects in the body, but it is our hope that we can show parents and students that these drinks are an unhealthy choice by simply showing one of the effects...the heart rate. We have done our experiment by having these children drink Red-Bull , Coca-Cola , and Tim Horton s iced-cappuccino. To control the results to make sure that the change in heart rate, if any, was not simply from the motion of drinking, we also had our subjects drink regular tap water. Our Hypothesis is that all drinks containing caffeine, such as Red Bull , Coca-Cola and Iced Cappuccinos will have an effect on the heart rate of children and should be avoided. We expect that Red Bull will have the highest effect on a 12 and 13 year olds heart rate, then Iced Cappuccino and then Coca-Cola. We think that drinking water may have a slight effect on heart rate within the first 5 minutes of the test, simply from the act of drinking, but no effect after that. We think that all energy drinks raise heart rate and should be avoided by everyone, especially children. If heart rate is affected, we suspect that there will also be a negative effect on blood pressure. Along with our knowledge that caffeine has a very negative effect on bones, it seems obvious that parents should ensure that children not drink these types of liquid drugs .