Josep Maria Suelves
Researcher at the Behavioural Design Lab at the UOC eHealth Centre, member of the board of directors of the Public Health Society of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and vice-chairman of the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking
Energy drinks are products that, in addition to high amounts of caffeine, often contain other stimulants, such as taurine, which increase the stimulating effect associated with the idea of energy. Almost all energy drinks, in addition to being stimulants, contain significant amounts of sugar, like other soft drinks. The advertising they have been subjected to in recent years has made adolescents a population in which consumption is very high, as reflected in the results of the latest survey on drug use in secondary schools in Spain, ESTUDES.
Prohibiting their sale to minors could be a good measure to reduce their consumption and avoid the risks they pose in terms of higher incidence of obesity and other problems derived from their stimulating effect; but these are measures that focus exclusively on the end users of the product and do not establish limitations on manufacturing or advertising. They could be useful provided that efforts are made to monitor compliance with this ban — which is not always done — and they should be accompanied by other measures on advertising or on the characteristics of the products that would make them safer because, otherwise, we are ultimately focusing exclusively on responsible consumption, rather than on those who promote it; and that, in addition to being unfair, is inefficient.