Energy drinks encourage obesity and aggressive behaviour – we should go further than banning them for teens

The stomach-churning combination of a high level of caffeine and a dumper-load of sugar in one handy can gives me (standing nearly 6ft tall) the shakes, so what’s the effect on a 10-year-old?

Mixing energy drinks with alcohol can be a particularly brutal combination (Getty Images)

Are some non-alcoholic drinks addictive? You’ll know if you have a friend who has tried to stop drinking Coke – each 330ml can contains the equivalent of seven teaspoons of sugar – that it’s certainly very difficult. Diet Coke is just as hard to dump. It can take months to get it out of your daily routine.

Energy drinks factor in another addictive component: caffeine. It’s hardly surprising they’ve become so popular – we live in a busy society where everyone wants to achieve, hit targets, get to school on time, and fit in with their friends, whatever it takes.

The stomach-churning combination of a high level of caffeine and a dumper-load of sugar in one handy can gives me (standing nearly 6ft tall) the shakes, so what’s the effect on a 10-year-old?

Up and down the UK, small grocery stores sell gallons of this stuff to kids every weekday afternoon when they leave school. Some poor sods actually drink it for breakfast instead of consuming real fruit and then head off to the challenges of the playground.

Worse, a popular cocktail for many older teens is half a bottle of vodka mixed with Red Bull – which, for the easily led, could be a gateway to something stronger, maybe some drugs to reinforce the buzz a bit longer.

This is the same kind of buzz that “recovered” addicts get from codeine. They stock up on Nurofen Plus for “down” days and the strongest energy drinks to try and mimic the harder substances they turned their backs on. Their reasoning is: I’ve given up the killer demons of alcohol and drugs, so what I consume (legally) in my time is nobody else’s business.

I understand the logic: if someone has passed the age of consent, I don’t think we can stop them ruining their health with legal stimulants. Banning is not the answer. The young and impressionable, however, are another matter – their health is a precious commodity – and there’s plenty of evidence that drinking and smoking in your teens hardens arteries and harms lungs in later life.

We should be extremely concerned about the way energy drinks are marketed to young people by the drinks industry – they’re targeted as aggressively at teens as alcopops were a few years ago. The soft drinks business has come a long way from those innocent days of “healthy” Lucozade – this modern stuff has four times the level of caffeine and sugar and its manufacturers are keen to ally themselves with sporting events and champions. I can’t see the link between a can of sugar and physical achievement, but I never bought into the notion that drinking an orange fizzy drink in a funny bottle would cure the flu or my childhood chickenpox.

Energy drinks might be alcohol-free, but they’re still awful for people’s health when consumed in large quantities – especially children’s. Having said that, isn’t it a bit late for the government to announce a consultation on whether to ban their sale to anyone under 16 or 18?

Their aim of halving childhood obesity by 2030 resulted in a sugar tax on soft drinks (criticised for not being tough enough) and now they plan to restrict the sale of beverages with raunchy names like Red Bull, Relentless and Rockstar Xdurance, sold in crass cans designed to appeal to the young. Teachers and doctors say these drinks are responsible for bad behaviour at school, a huge rise in dental decay, and a 40 per cent rise in type 2 diabetes. Well over a quarter of UK children under 15 are overweight or obese – and our children are the biggest consumers of energy drinks in Europe. In 2016, the UK market was worth £2bn, so manufacturers are not going to cave in without a fight.

Banning their sale to people under 18 is a small step, but it will not change an awful lot and it would be hard to enforce. I would take a different approach: these drinks should be treated like alcoholic beverages and taxed accordingly, because their consumption is placing a huge burden on the NHS.

Why pick on teens? Adults should be targeted too. I would ban soft drinks dispensers in spas, sports clubs, schools, petrol stations, motorway service areas and hospitals. Energy drinks should be rationed (like codeine and certain painkillers) at supermarkets – no more than two per customer over 18, on production of ID. Once the price has increased, they will be less appealing to the young anyway.

At the same time, we should follow other countries, like Iceland for example, and use any taxes raised to create community funding for after-school youth activities. Maybe we should take the radical step of imposing a curfew in certain urban areas – because there’s no doubt in my mind that a spike in violence is partly linked to the popularity of these stimulating drinks. They rot teeth, encourage obesity and are responsible for extremely aggressive behaviour. So treat them exactly like alcohol.