Drinking Fluids Before, During and After Sports Important For Children

Surprising, as it may seem, the most important part of an athlete's diet isn't what they eat, it is what and how much they drink. Hydration before, during and after exercise is especially important for preadolescent children because they have special fluid needs compared to adults, or even teenagers. As a parent or coach, you are responsible for taking precautions to prevent heat illnesses in exercising children and making sure they drink enough fluids.

One of the most important functions of water is to cool the body. As a child exercises, his muscles generate heat, raising his body temperature. When the body gets hot, it sweats. The evaporating sweat cools the body. If the child does not replace the water lost through sweating by drinking more fluids, the body's water balance will be upset and the body may overheat.

To keep from becoming dehydrated, your child should drink fluids before, during and after exercise. To promote fluid intake in kids, fluids containing sodium (i.e. sports drinks) have been shown to increase voluntary drinking by 90% and prevent dehydration compared to drinking plain water. Recent research suggests that a "one-size-fits-all" prescriptive advice to drinking is outdated because sweat water losses are dynamic and dependent on the intensity of exercise (higher metabolic rate, more sweating, more water loss); the ambient temperature (the hotter the conditions, the greater the amount of evaporative sweat production); and body size (bigger the mass, more evaporative sweat needed to cool the body). These three main drivers of sweat water loss are highly variable in children.

Nevertheless, it is still a good idea for kids to drink fluids before, during, and after exercise, especially in the heat. 

Revised and updated July 8, 2019