Gatorade, Powerade, etc, are all what today's society considers sports, or energy drinks. But are they really healthy, or the best for the average teen to drink on a regular basis? I decided to research this topic since my brother happens to love them, but i have heard many terrifying stories on how they affect people. There are always pros and cons to everything, and of course they do have their uses. Lets take a look.
First of all the taste. Gatorade specifically has about 30 different flavours so athletes will have something that tastes better then plain water. Gatorade also hydrates an provides the restoration of electrolytes. Electrolytes help with your muscle contractions. They also include vitamins and they also replenish your body's fluids. When you sweat or after you're finished exercising they can provide the nutrients and vitamins you lost through sweating. Some sports drinks even have sugar free options, so its not as bad as having a can of coke.
Besides all the positives of sports drinks, there are many cons. When you over use or abuse the point of sports drinks it can result in harm to your body. First of all there is not much water , and water is ESSENTIAL for every athlete's body. Secondly the levels of dyes and sugars in sports drinks are quite high, causing dental damage. The dental damage from gatorade takes effect faster then coke. The sugar can also cause extra weight gain. One sport drink per day, everyday would cause at lead a 13lb weight gain per year. Some sports drinks have caffeine in them, but the levels can be even higher than a cup of coffee or a can of coke! Most companies claim that these drinks improve your over all experience, yet scientists don't even have hard evidence that this is even true.
Personally i don't think sports drinks are the best beverages to drink, but there obviously some very helpful positives. But next time you have the choice between water and a sport drink, go for the water. It may not taste as good, but you are doing your body a HUGE favour.
Sources:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/75345-pros-cons-gatorade/
http://www.lifescript.com/diet-fitness/articles/s/sports_drinks_exploring_the_pros_and_cons.aspx
http://michiganstatenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/pros-and-cons-of-sports-drinks-water-may-be-just-as-beneficial-when-sweating/
Good job Hannah! I can tell you did a lot of research since it is very informative. Like your last post, the tone is conversational. Try to fix that, but if u need help, read some other posts. Also, try to change the lower case "i"'s to capital letters. I agree with you since sports drinks do contain some harmful chemicals and sweeteners (so you buy it again). I believe that water is the best to drink whenever you are thirsty.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Hannah! Like XingLu said, we can tell that you did some research to support your facts. I like how you gave us information on both pros and cons of energy drinks. You also gave some specific facts that made me surprised such as " One sport drink per day, everyday would cause at lead a 13 lb weight gain per year."
ReplyDeleteThere is some spelling mistakes that you can easily change by looking over your work once or twice after your done typing it out. For example, your "i"s should be capitalized and in the sentence "Gatorade also hydrates an provides the restoration of electrolytes." , the "an" should be spelled "and."
Overall, you did a nice job on using more than one source to find different point of views and changing it to your own words. Keep it up!
Great Blog Response! I completely agree with the positive and negative impacts sports drinks can have on an individual. Just like anything can be good for you, that is, in moderation. Water is the way to go when doing sports, but pro athletes also like to add sports and energy drinks into their diets in order to get the vitamins they might need to keep them going through the day. I believe if you are to drink mainly water while doing sports and activities which require alot of hard work you will live a long healthy life. While adding a sports drink, such as gatorade to your diet every once in a while it won't make that much of a difference, unless you were to drink 4 sports or energy drinks everyday. That, would indeed be heading you in the wrong direction. Too much sugar is never could for an athlete, especially because too much can dehydrate you. It's never a positive thing to be dehydrated during physical activity. I agree with alot of what you included in your post today. One thing to look out for are a few individual spelling errors throughout your post, other than that excellent job!!!
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