Are Teenagers Too Young to Drink Coffee?

Coffee, coffee, coffee. That hot, bitter brown liquid swirling in your parents’ cups. I’m sure you see adults drinking coffee every day. Maybe your teenage siblings do, too. But are teenagers too young to drink coffee? 

I have discovered that teenagers are too young to drink coffee! Coffee causes negative impacts for teenagers. This may not be your concern right now, but at least a few of you will start to drink coffee on a daily basis when you’re teenagers. Here are my thoughts on why.

Firstly, coffee affects teenagers’ mood, sleep and concentration. According to an online health company called Magnus Health, caffeine in the coffee can cause “dehydration, lack of concentration, headaches, sleepiness, an upset tummy and the jitters” in teens. Caffeine is a stimulative bitter powder found in coffee, tea, dark chocolate and some energy drinks that makes you more “awake” and “alert”. Therefore, many teenagers drink coffee to stay up late at night to study and end up feeling sleepy, cranky and failing their exams the next day. 

Secondly, too much coffee makes your heartbeat go faster and faster until it feels like you’re running in a race. Drinking too much coffee could cause you to have serious heart conditions that will last for your whole life, such as strokes and cardiovascular disease. Research shows that drinking more than 1 cup a day could cause more risk of cardiac problems. Besides increasing the risk of heart conditions, caffeine also disrupts teenagers’ brain connections.

Thirdly, only adults should drink coffee because their brains are fully developed and teenagers’ aren’t. During adolescence, your brain has the most connections of brain cells it will ever have, so you will learn more and get smarter.    Coffee is slowing down the maturing process of teen brains, says the Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia or the HCF. You guys don’t want to become dumb adults, do you? This means adolescents are more likely to get caffeine-related symptoms like anxiety and nervousness, unlike adults, whose brains are fully developed. 

Some people think that teens will abide by the caffeine limit, which is 100 mg. But NO! They are wrong. For some teenagers who have intolerance to caffeine, they drink more and more coffee to achieve the effect they want, which exceeds the recommended limit of caffeine! Also, people think drinking a teeny weeny bit more than the caffeine limit doesn’t really matter, but actually it does. Teenagers can get addicted to coffee and can’t cut back on their caffeine amount, so they just keep on drinking more

I strongly believe that teenagers are too young to drink coffee since caffeine affects their mood, concentration, sleep, heart and brain. If you are very drowsy and coffee doesn’t help at all, then I suggest you see a doctor and sleep more. So, what do you think? Are teenagers too young to drink coffee? Will you drink coffee now or will you wait until you’re an adult before you start drinking  it?