Picture this: you’re in primary school and you’re forced to sit through assembly after assembly about the fundamental dangers of addiction – addiction that causes thousands of deaths per year. “Addiction is a disease that can easily be stopped. If you don’t start smoking cigarettes then you’ll never get addicted” I remember my teacher saying, with a stern face. We all understood. It really was that easy to stay safe. But actually – even as responsible adolescents – we don’t understand that addiction can come in a plethora of forms – one of which is right under our noses.
Energy drinks.
Fundamentally, each day teens inject themselves with an extortionate amount of sugar and caffeine hoping for their “fix”. This epidemic has plagued youths of the UK and, unsurprisingly, has no signs of stopping or even slowing down. Everyone from year 7 up to year 11, crowd their pockets nonchalantly with these inexpensive but -in their minds- lavish drinks thus casing irreversible consequences to their bodies. And, instead of school books they crowd their bags with these toxic drinks. They flaunt their ludicrously unhealthy habits for all to see and others feel compelled to do so too. Their teeth, chattering. Their mind, off focus. Energy drinks are the quintessential nadir of youth in our society today You may assume that, irresponsible and in denial, these teens are simple blinded by their obsession with the “sweet stuff” and through their sweats of withdrawal symptoms worrying about their next 50p to buy a monster energy. The metamorphosis is simple, “just stop drinking them” they cynically suggest. Let me break that down further, would you even tell a smoker to “just stop smoking”?
Absolutely not!
Personally, I see energy drinks normalized immensely in a school environment. In fact, In 2014, Robyn Lawrence, a sociologist that specialises in teenagers, did a study about the physiological effects of a repeated message around peers. She stated that “No matter how idiosyncratic the motif, the more its repeated, the more it is accepted amongst the sample group”. Though adults see energy drink addicted teens as just hegemonic who don't listen to the people that tell them its bad for them they are really victims of peer pressure – peer pressure that causes their life spans to be shortened.
I think -however- the easy access that can act as a catalyst in the rapid growth in popularity and the crux of the issue. This increase since 2013, means that a plethora of different shops put energy drinks in their stores that further pushed the message amongst school children that they are “trendy” or “cool”. And, forgive me if I seem harsh, the fact that teenagers can get energy drinks is so easily could easily be solved by a simple ban.
So is a ban really like a vaccination against the disease of energy drink addiction?
Yes, absolutely.
