To gain energy in the morning and throughout the day many Souderton studentsare choosing to drink various types and brands of caffeinated energy drinks, despite the side effects.
In a BBC article by Philipa Roxby she says that in the United Kingdom, most supermarkets have instituted a voluntary ban on the sale of caffeinated energy drinks.
In the United States, energy drinks remain unbanned across the country and according to Terry Ratzlaff in a New York Times article sales of energy drinks in the United States have gone from $12 billion to $19 billion in the past five years.
According to sophomore Ari Swindells, she decided to start drinking energy drinks around two years ago in order to “stay awake.”
“Whenever I have to stay up to do schoolwork or I want to get up early I have an energy drink,” Swindells said. “I think they help me focus and I feel much more productive.”
Freshman Ariana Im agrees.
“I drink [energy drinks] mostly to keep up with my schoolwork,” Im said. “After I am done with my sports and I go home after practice, sometimes I need a little more energy to get through my work.”
According to a presentation done by Morgan Presson from the Oregon Lundquist College of Business, energy drinks are primarily advertised to a younger audience and are appealing because of their higher caffeine content.
Presson says that energy drinks can vary from 70-250 milligrams of caffeine per container, compared to the average caffeine in a cup of coffee which is 95 milligrams.
Swindells agreed that the higher caffeine definitely drew her attention.
“I think some of the appeal to me was that I got so much more energy from an energy drink than I did from coffee,” Swindells said.
Im said that while she enjoys the more energy, the higher caffeine scares her.
“I want the extra energy, but I feel like if I have two of the cans then that is way too much caffeine,” Im said.
According to Swindells, this higher caffeine count forced her to stop drinking energy drinks and stick to lower caffeine drinks like coffee.
“I got sick and I had to stop drinking energy drinks,” Swindells said, “but as soon as I stopped I got a terrible migraine and could not move my head for days.”
Senior Luca Barnabei says that he does not drink energy drinks but has seen a lot of his friends drink them and “does not understand the reasoning.”
“[My friends] all drink these energy drinks with hundreds of milligrams of caffeine but I think if they just slept they would not need the drinks,” Barnabei said.
In the United States federal regulations say that schools cannot sell energy drinks to middle or elementary school students, however in high school there are very few regulations.
Despite the often 200 plus milligrams of caffeine in energy drinks, Im still drinks them because “the more stress the more energy I need.”