When you are watching your favorite sports team on TV, have you ever noticed that the first thing the athletes do when they get to the sideline or dugout is get a drink? Whether on their own or from the hand of an athletic trainer, they drink constantly every chance they get throughout the game. That is how important hydration is to athletic performance.
So it is a true mystery to me that proper hydration isn't weaved in the fabric of our youth sports culture. In fact, proper hydration is just as important to safety as any protective equipment. If our young athletes had better access to the right fluids in the right way, their sports performance would not only dramatically improve but the risk of one of the most dangerous sports injuries, dehydration and heat illness, would be dramatically reduced.
You've heard the old saying that the human body needs 8 glasses of water a day to stay healthy. Did you know that was a myth? In fact, it is one of the biggest pop medical myths of our time. No one is quite sure where it came from and no scientist to date has been able to prove that 8 is the number. What we do know is that our bodies need fluids to function, water being one of them, and an important one since 80% of our body is comprised of water. However, to be "water balanced" we need salts (electrolytes), too, especially sodium and potassium, and some sugar, namely glucose.
Typically, we lose water and salt together in tears, sweat, urine and stool. As we go about a typical day with a normal diet that water and salt gets replaced just fine. But sometimes, in special situations, we can lose a bit more of water or salt such as with fever or gastrointestinal illnesses and we need more fluids than we typically need. Sports and warm weather are the two other special circumstances that put people at very high risk for becoming dehydrated and the people at most risk are kids. This is when we need to worry about becoming dehydrated and where rehydration with fluids, including sports drinks, play an important role.
The only other way to replace fluids when dehydrated is by an intravenous line and sometimes that is needed. However, with proper hydration before, during and after a sports workout or game, a child can be spared this simple yet often unsettling procedure.
Many parents don't know that sports drinks are designed as rehydration fluids, not for general use, so they end up not giving them to their children out of fear of all the "extra calories" they supposedly contain. It is true that extra calories might be an issue (and, for some kids, is an issue) if you gave sports drinks to your kids to drink during the day as regular hydration. But used for their intended purpose - to re-hydrate and replaced energy stores used during exercise - the extra sugar in a sports drink simply replaces the sugar your child uses up during exercise.
Our bodies operate by a simple principle of balance. Our normal diet of food and drink is designed to replace what we typically use up in our bodies as we go about our day. Our hunger and thirst mechanisms help us know when our bodies are low on energy (protein and sugar) or fluids. When we exert ourselves more such as with exercise (or even during illness), our bodies need more energy and fluids because our bodies are working overtime and are using up stores of sugars, salts and fluids.
If we don't replace the fluids, sugars and salts we lose during exercise, our bodies stay depleted of those things and that is when we become dehydrated.
The symptoms of dehydration are relatively "standard" in both adults and kids. There is, however, one major difference: kids and young teens don't sense thirst as well and they don't show signs of dehydration until much later in the dehydration process than older teens or adults. As, a result, by the time a child or young teen is showing signs of dehydration, they are more severely dehydrated than an older child would be with the same symptoms.
To add insult to injury, regardless of age, by the time a person has the symptoms you usually read about, they are in need of an IV.
Here's the list of symptoms I'm sure you are familiar with:
Where kids are concerned, the more symptoms a child has, the more
severely dehydrated he is. And, thirst is often a late and unreliable
sign. Another issue that confuses people is how to interpret the child
who sweats. Sweat is fluid loss and that fluid contains water, sugar
and salts. If your child is sweating during a game, your child is at
risk of becoming dehydrated. The best way to avoid that is to have
sports drinks on hand for your child to drink at every opportunity.
Kids should know the warning signs
So, what should you have your kids monitor for while playing a sport? How they feel overall. If they are becoming dizzy while playing, their energy is dropping, or they feel their hearts are pounding faster than normal, they are becoming dehydrated. Many kids also complain of feeling very nauseous and some may actually vomit. A child with these symptoms should not continue to play but should sit on the bench and drink, drink and drink some more. If the child can't drink or continues to vomit, that child needs to go the ER.
The best game plan for hydration is to have kids pre-hydrate with a sports drink before a game and continue drinking throughout a game and after. Eating a snack before a game containing some sugar and salt also helps. This is where sports bars come in very handy. So, send your kids to school with a sports drink and make sure there are plenty more on hand during the game. While many teams now have sports drinks on the sideline in place of water, many are still sticking to just water. Water is not going to do the trick.
It is also important for an athlete to pre-hydrate throughout the day leading up to the game. An athlete will perform better if their hydration status at game time is perfect. The best way for kids to achieve this is to drink well all day long. This is where water comes in as well as any fluids the child wants to drink. While there is no proof that 8 glasses a water a day is the "magic" number, it does give kids a concrete goal to aim for and something they can do in the days leading up to every game.
About a year ago, I saw a runner that I'll never forget. She came into my office around noon time on a Sunday because when she went running that morning she became dizzy. She was worried that something was horribly wrong with her heart. While talking with her, I learned a few interesting tidbits:
I asked her how her car would run if she attempted to drive it when the gas tank was nearly empty and it was running on fumes. I could see a big light bulb go off in her head. The next day I had her wake up, drink a sports drink and eat a protein-loaded breakfast. She went running after that without any dizziness or problems at all.
While sorting all this out, try and remember you are really sorting this out for your child. The more you involve your child in the discussions about how best to hydrate for sports, the more successful your child will be on executing the plan without you there. Our job as parents is to try and empower our kids to be independent with their health care and the best way to accomplish that is to actively involve them in discussions that deal with their own bodies. Believe it or not, even the youngest of athletes understands how important it is to care for their own bodies! In fact, they see Elmo doing it all the time on Sesame Street. Our job is to continue to reinforce those lessons as our kids get older and help them to gain more and more independence and competence as they spend more time away from us.
Links:
[1] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/1480
[2] https://mail.momsteam.com/users/drsusan
[3] https://mail.momsteam.com/nutrition/sports-hydration/heat-illnesses/warning-signs-and-symptoms-of-dehydration-kids-can-become-dehydrated-in-cold-weather
[4] https://mail.momsteam.com/nutrition/heat-illness-cramps-exhaustion-stroke-signs-treatment