Perceptions of Sports and Energy Drinks: Factors Associated with Adolescent Beliefs

Purpose: To understand what factors are associated with adolescents’ perceived healthfulness of sports drinks (SD) and of energy drinks (ED), with a focus on health risk, athletics, and media-related variables. Design: Cross-sectional survey Setting: Online Subjects: U.S. adolescents ages 14-18 years (n = 501) recruited from a combination of non-probability and probability-based panels. Measures: Outcome variables were perceived healthfulness of SDs and of EDs. Independent variables included adolescents’ health background (oral health, diabetes risk, self-reported weight); behaviors (SD and ED consumption, athletic identity, sports participation, physical activity), and media items (media literacy, exposure to advertisements on TV, YouTube, social media). Results: Regression results indicated that adolescents’ increased perception that SDs are healthy was significantly associated (P<.05 level) with casual sports participation (b=.56, se=.27), athletic identification (b=.28, se=.11), exposure to SD advertisements on social media (b=.55, s =.25), and higher consumption (b=.28, se=.13). For adolescents’ perceptions of EDs, significantly related correlates included athletic identification (b=.26, se=10), having an increased risk of diabetes (b= −.79, s =.26), poorer oral health (b=.33, se=.16), and consumption (b=.76, s =.16); increased media literacy was associated with more accurate perceptions (b=−.35, se=.14). Conclusions: Adolescents’ hold different perceptions about the healthfulness of sports and energy drink, and their beliefs about each drink are related to different types of factors that may have implications for public health interventions. Cross-sectional survey design and adolescent self-reports are limitations.