Are sports drinks junk food?
The debate in Congress about nutritional standards that would limit junk food in schools is hung up on the question of whether sports drinks such as Gatorade, Powerade and “enhanced waters” like Vitamin Water should be considered junk food. Sports drinks typically have about two-thirds the amount of sugar of soda and more sodium than soft drinks. A 20-ounce bottle of Gatorade has 270 milligrams of sodium, about 12 percent of a teen’s daily allowance. Representatives of the beverage trade group say that sports drinks are “appropriate” for high school students and “essential” to young athletes, who apparently survived without energy drinks before 1969 on sheer luck. In fact, Gatorade says it is appropriate for infants after they have been weaned from breast milk, as it helps kids who are losing fluid due to illness. But health advocates say sports drinks shouldn’t be consumed by the general student population who aren’t exercising for an hour or more each day, and that drinking such beve
