“Sugar causes our children to be hyperactive,”, we are pretty sure you have heard this myth before
Have you ever wondered if any children’s health myths are really true as in a scientifically proven and legitimate medical facts? These myths have been around for a long time and it is time for us to know the truth.
The question here is, is it true? In the 3rd Episode of AskMeDoctor! Dr Foo Chee Hoe, a paediatrician from Pantai Hospital Ampang and Dr Foo Child Specialist Clinic will help us dispels 10 common myths about our children’s health.
Q1: Does ‘baby talk’ with an infant delays their ability to speak normally?
Dr Foo: It is not entirely true. We can’t say that baby talk would delay the speech development of a child but we have to define what exactly is baby talk.
Baby talk is a good kick-starter for a child to learn the language and to introduce them to the world of sound and speech. But baby talk should not be just about meaningless babbling, gibberish words like “gugu, gaga, u’uuu, a’aaa”.
You can define baby talk as actually a parent using an animated style of talking and using a high pitch voice to make it more exciting and more dramatic.
To speak in a very interesting way to engage fully with the child in an exaggerated manner with lots of facial expressions is actually very useful to help your child to develop their speech.
Q2: Antibiotic is the key to many illnesses, especially fevers and cold?
Dr Foo: It is not true at all. First of all, we need to differentiate between viral illnesses and bacteria illnesses.
Viral Illnesses that should NOT be given antibiotics:
- A child with fever
- Cough
- Cold and runny nose
Bacterial Illnesses that should be given antibiotics:
- Ear infection
- Tonsil infection
- Lung infection
- Urinary tract infection
- Skin infection from an infected wound
- Ear infection
When we talk about antibiotics, antibiotics is a medication that is used ONLY to treat bacterial infection. It is WRONG to provide antibiotics for viral infections:
- Will waste money and resources.
- Antibiotics may actually do other side effects.
- Increases the chance for antibiotic resistance to bad diarrhoea.
Again, children with fever, cough, and runny nose should NOT be routinely given antibiotics! Instead, antibiotics should be used for obvious significant bacterial infection.
Q3: Sugar intake causes children to be hyperactive?
Dr Foo: This question can lead to a controversial topic because earlier studies have hypothesised that sugar may cause hyperactive behaviour.
But further studies have shown that children who take more sugar than WHO recommendation, are found not to have an increased risk to develop Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).
However, high sugar intake can cause body physiological changes. It gives you an adrenaline rush and the person may develop symptoms and behaviour that is similar to being hyperactive because of it.
If you are stating that sugar has a direct link to hyperactive disorder then it is not true.
However, it is never good to give too much sugar to your child. We must always emphasize that a child must have a healthy diet. Simple sugar and too much-refined sugar are never good anyway.
Sugar causes sugar rush but it is not the same that it’s causing hyperactive?
Yes, if you are taking high sugar intake, adrenaline will increase in response to your sudden increase in blood sugar activity and will have this kind of symptoms. But do not make a child have a disorder or increase the risk to have ADHD just because of that.
Q4: Does eating ice-cream will lead to a cough?
Dr Foo: Well. I always recommend parents not to give too much sugar to children. I would like to confess, my daughter and I enjoy ice-cream quite regularly and thankfully both of us never had any cough just because of eating ice-cream.
Again, there is no direct cause or link between just merely ice-cream and you will surely get a cough. There are people who get a cough or they become uncomfortable in their throat and in their breathing after taking ice-cream. These are mainly because of allergy.
If you are allergic to certain substances or ingredients from the ice-cream such as dairy products, artificial flavouring, colouring or any additive inside which can cause discomfort of the throat or in the airway would lead you to have a cough.
But again, not everyone who enjoys an ice-cream will end up having a cough. I would like to emphasize that with the food safety procedures all done, your ice-cream does not contain any bacteria or germs where you will get a fever by ingesting the ice-cream.
Q5: Do teething causes fever?
Dr Foo: First of all, teething does make a child to be fussy or feel uneasy, and their body may feel a bit warmer but it is not a true fever. The teething would start happening between 6 to 8 months.
And around this time, it is also a very common period for your baby to start falling sick significantly for the first time. Meaning that they really have a fever. Usually, they will have a mild viral fever, known as Roseola Infantum.
So these two events are overlapping, which is why parents and our grandparents tend to blame teething fever. It is a bit dangerous to just blame teething causing fever because they may end up delaying action in treating the fever.
All this is a part of growing up where your immune system occasionally may get weakened for a while and allows those previous viruses that are already exposed get activated and give you a mild viral infection.
What Is Roseola Infantum?
- Common infection in an infant between 6 months old and all the way to 2 years old.
- It would be 3 to 5 days of intermittent fever breakdown.
- Towards the end, your child would have recovery rashes and that is definitely not due to teething.
- When your child is having a significant fever, you have to think of it as an infection, either bacteria or viral.
But even that also, most likely only a mild infection. You cannot blame teething because sometimes it gives you a sense of false security and may end up delaying any action. What is more likely is that, during this period, your child is growing!
Lastly, no matter how convincing a myth is, always check with facts first for firm reassurance on our children’s health.
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