Attitudes toward sports drinks and their sale in public schools—Styles 2004 surveys

Background: Increasingly, school policies to address pediatric overweight limit sugar-sweetened beverage availability. Some schools offer sports drinks (SD) as healthier alternatives to soda or fruit drinks, though some SD have comparable amounts of sugar and calories per serving. Little is known about attitudes toward SD and their sale in public schools. Methods: We analyzed 1,052 linked parent-child questionnaires from the 2004 HealthStyles and YouthStyles surveys—annual national mail panel surveys to US adults and children aged 9-18 y, respectively. Responses to the questions “sports drinks are healthy” from both surveys and “public schools should be allowed to sell sports drinks on school property” from HealthStyles were analyzed using multiple-variable logistic regression to determine how each attitude was associated with sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Among children, 35% agreed that SD are healthy. Female children (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=0.52, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.39-0.69) and children whose parents disagreed that SD are healthy (AOR=0.47, 95% CI=0.35-0.64) were less likely to agree that SD are healthy. Among parents, 20% agreed (vs. 51% neutral, 29% disagree) that SD are healthy. Parents educated beyond college were less likely to agree that SD are healthy (AOR=0.53, 95% CI=0.31-0.90). Forty-five percent of parents agreed that public schools should be allowed to sell SD; no sociodemographic characteristics were associated with this attitude. Conclusions: The majority of children and parents do not believe that SD are healthy. Less than 50% of parents believe SD should be sold in public schools. Policymakers for school beverage availability should consider these attitudes.