THAT'S G

That’s G! You have heard and seen it a million times. Whether it is on a vending machine, in a magazine, on the bottle you are drinking from, or on a commercial Gatorade blasts their slogans and logo all over the place. They are the world leader in sports drink sales and they have made a killing by getting people to believe that it enhances their physical shape and recovery. But does it actually?

I have drank Gatorade as long as I have been playing sports (about 14 years) because of one reason, it tastes good! Let’s be honest, everyone always was a little salty when in little league soccer there would always be that one mom who would bring everyone waters and apples so post-game snacks. Everybody wanted Gatorade and fruit snacks. That is just the way I have been wired since I was little kid. I was taught that Gatorade is healthy and it is great to drink while doing a physical activity or consuming it as a post physical activity refreshment. I was even taught that in any situation it is healthier to drink Gatorade than any type of soda or soft drink.

We see athletes drinking out of Gatorade cups and bottles on the sidelines of all different sporting events and we also see them endorsing the product in all sorts of commercials and advertisements. With all of the advertising and endorsing that Gatorade does you would expect it to be something that is very good for you and a home run for physical fitness. Think again.

Gatorade has more sugar in it than people think. The following quote is derived from an article by Hannah Olson about the effect of Sports Drinks. It shows how much sugar sports drinks have in them and how that relates to the daily intake of sugar by children. “Children are recommended to get just 12 grams of sugar per day. One bottle of Gatorade, then–which, by the way, is four servings–is almost five times as much as a child needs in a day, with little to no nutritional payoff”. That is eye-opening, to think that something I would drink more than once a day as a kid had almost five times my daily intake of sugar in it is something that I wish I would have known a few years ago. This here shows that Gatorade is in fact better to drink than soft drinks but just barely. There are 65 grams of sugar in a 20 fl oz. bottle of Coca Cola and 56 grams of sugar in a 20 fl oz. bottle of Gatorade. Pretty crazy how something we envision fit and muscular world class athletes drinking is so class to being just as bad for your body as something that would complete a supersize meal at a fast-food restaurant.

Most of research that it is done for not only Gatorade but other sports drinks is done on world class athletes at the peak of their career during very high level training and it has shown that at that level Gatorade can help the body recover. But how does Gatorade affect the Average Joe just during an evening workout at their local gym? The Average Joe is not going to be doing the high level strenuous exercises that a top notch athlete would be doing so will it help their cardiovascular system as much or will it simply just be sugar being broken down into fat? The answer is this will simply not help the Average Joe and will just turn out to be a negative form of a hydration for an Average Joe. According to Lisa Sefcik of LiveStrong.com the effects of Gatorade will only have a positive effect if you are partaking in strenuous cardiovascular exercise for more than one hour. If that is the case then the Electrolytes and Carbohydrates in Gatorade can give you more energy and rebuild muscle tissue. This is the reason you will see a lot of professional and world-class athletes especially in high cardiovascular enduring sports (football, basketball, cycling etc.) drinking Gatorade both during and after competition because they are burning enough fat and calories to the point where the science behind Gatorade helps their body replenish what it has lost.

 However, that is the only upside to Gatorade. Unless you are partaking in an hour straight of strenuous exercise it is much more beneficial for you body to rehydrate with water while exercising. Judging by what I see at the RPAC between people sitting on the bench tweeting to walking by mirrors slowly “wiping off their sweat with their shirt sleeve” there are not many college students who would fall into the category of physical exercise that makes Gatorade the optimal beverage. So next time you are working out or playing a sport really think about what you have been doing and realize that water is probably the best choice. Because when it comes down to it, Gatorade really isn’t that “G”.