Report: Sugar Doesn't Make Children Hyperactive

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork)--  Is there anything kids like more than candy, cake and ice cream? And anything parents like less when it comes to the apparent effects on behavior?

"Every child is different and for my children, it causes them to act out hyperactively," mother Laura Budill told CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez.

"They get more active for a while then they crash," mother Sarah Wickersham said.

Some kids even say they can tell what sugar does to them.

"That makes me hyped sometimes," 9-year-old Megan Gidora said of sugar.

However, a recent article in New York Magazine had taken that long held belief about sugar causing hyperactive behavior and called it a myth.

Author Cari Romm pointed out several scientific studies, including an analysis of more than 20 studies by pediatrician Dr. Mark Wolraich at the University of Oklahoma that found no correlation between kids consuming sugar and hyperactive behavior.

"The research has shown that kids do not get hyperactive after eating sugar," Dr. Jamie Howard, of the Child Mind Institute, said. "Actually their behavior is just the same as if they had no sugar at all."

Howard said the sugar myth has stuck around because parents believe sugar affects their child.

"They'll be more likely to notice things, so they'll be on the lookout for more jumping around, more energetic, aggressive, less control-- so they'll be more likely to notice," she said.

Howard and others said the behavior is often because of when kids are eating sugar. It's the birthday party, Halloween, holidays that get them excited, not the sugar. Some kids seem to agree.

"I don't really get affected that much," 11-year-old Nathaniel Keller said.

There are plenty of reasons, other than hyperactivity, not to give your kids a lot of sugar, especially since those empty calories are contributing to the obesity epidemics among children in the country.