--- title: Hyper Kids? Cut Out Preservatives description: Parents who suspect that artificial ingredients in food are affecting their children's behavior can now point to some cold, hard proof. A carefully designed study... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6932168/hyper-kids-cut-out-preservatives/ author: Claudia Wallis article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2007-09-06T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T03:46:10.035Z article:section: Health og:title: Hyper Kids? Cut Out Preservatives og:description: Parents who suspect that artificial ingredients in food are affecting their children's behavior can now point to some cold, hard proof. A carefully designed study... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6932168/hyper-kids-cut-out-preservatives/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ebe8600dd22eab6/698a4d61457a52c54cd69637/360_kids_food_dye_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_kids_food_dye_0906.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hyper Kids? Cut Out Preservatives twitter:description: Parents who suspect that artificial ingredients in food are affecting their children's behavior can now point to some cold, hard proof. A carefully designed study... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ebe8600dd22eab6/698a4d61457a52c54cd69637/360_kids_food_dye_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Hyper Kids? Cut Out Preservatives > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Claudia Wallis](https://time.com/author/claudia-wallis/) Sep 6, 2007 4:00 AM UTC  G. Baden / Zefa / Corbis by [Claudia Wallis](https://time.com/author/claudia-wallis/) Sep 6, 2007 4:00 AM UTC Parents who suspect that artificial ingredients in food are affecting their children’s behavior can now point to some cold, hard proof. A carefully designed study released Thursday in _The Lancet,_ a leading British medical journal, shows that a variety of common food dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate — an ingredient in many soft drinks, fruit juices, salad dressings and other foods — causes some children to become more hyperactive and distractible than usual. “In terms of a question that’s been raging for years, it’s the best study to date — an extremely good study,” says Dr. Philip Shaw, a research psychiatrist in the Child Psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. [(See the top 10 bad beverage ideas.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1913612%5F1913610,00.html) The study prompted Britain’s Food Standards Agency to issue an immediate advisory to parents to limit their children’s intake of additives if they notice an effect on behavior. In the U.S., there’s been no such official response, but doctors say it makes sense for parents to be on the alert. Meanwhile, the food industry is awaiting further research. “We take our responsibility to consumers seriously and will study the research finding in great detail,” says Cathy Cook, spokesperson for the International Association of Color Manufacturers. The research, led by Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at England’s University of Southampton, involved about 300 children in two age groups: 3-year-olds and 8- and 9-year-olds. Over three one-week periods, the children were randomly assigned to consume one of three fruit drinks daily: one contained the amount of dye and sodium benzoate typically found in a British child’s diet, a second drink had a lower concentration of the additives, and a third was additive-free. All the children spent a week drinking each of the three mixtures, which looked and tasted alike. During each weeklong period, teachers and parents, who did not know which drink the kids were getting, used a variety of standardized behavior-evaluation tools — some observational and one computer-based — to size up such qualities as restlessness, lack of concentration, fidgeting, and talking or interrupting too much. [(See nine kid foods to avoid.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1824402,00.html) Stevenson found that children in both age groups were significantly more hyperactive when drinking the stuff containing additives. Three-year-olds had a bigger response than the older kids to the lower dose of additives — roughly the same amount of food coloring as in two 2-oz. bags of candy. And, there were big individual differences in sensitivity. While the effects were not nearly so great as to cause full-blown ADHD, Stevenson nonetheless warns that “these adverse effects could affect the child’s ability to benefit from the experience of school.” He notes that a separate pilot study found that kids can become more hyperactive within one hour of consuming food additives. The _Lancet_ study is the first to nail down a link between artificial ingredients and hyperactivity, though the connection has long been suspected and was the basis for the Feingold Diet, which eliminates all artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners and preservatives and was popularized in the 1970s as a treatment for ADHD. Though such a diet alone is not a proven treatment for ADHD, some clinicians routinely advise parents of kids with ADHD to stick with a more natural diet.” I’m not maniacal about it, but I tell parents that your kid will do better if they are on a diet that is free of additives and junk food,” says psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, author a several books on ADHD. “I urge them to eat whole foods; they’ll be healthier anyway.” [(See the 10 worst fast-food meals.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1905549%5F1905546,00.html) Now that a link has been found, researchers will be looking to confirm the British study and build upon it. “My guess is that if we do similarly systematic work with other additives, we’d learn they, too, have implications for behavior,” says Dr. James Perrin, professor of pediatrics at Harvard. “My friends who study the food industry say we have about 70,000 new products a year, so children are facing tremendous numbers of new opportunities for things that may not be good for them.” The study, he says, is one more reason to cheer the movement toward organic and natural foods. [Read “Sweet Stand-Ins.”](https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1009739,00.html) [See the top 10 food trends of 2008.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948%5F1864255,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6932168/hyper-kids-cut-out-preservatives/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6932168/hyper-kids-cut-out-preservatives/"},"headline":"Hyper Kids? Cut Out Preservatives","datePublished":"2007-09-06T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T03:46:10.035Z","description":"Parents who suspect that artificial ingredients in food are affecting their children's behavior can now point to some cold, hard proof. 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