Why children crave sugar

August 27, 2014 04:08 am | Updated 09:56 am IST - New York

A five-year-old’s brain uses twice as much glucose as a full-grown adult. Photo: G. P. Sampath Kumar

A five-year-old’s brain uses twice as much glucose as a full-grown adult. Photo: G. P. Sampath Kumar

Know why your five-year-old kid demands chocolates or other sugary food all the time? To feed his/her “energy monster” brain.

According to a new study, our bodies cannot afford to grow faster during the toddler and childhood years because a huge quantity of resources is required to fuel the developing human brain. “As humans, we have so much to learn and that learning requires a complex and energy—hungry brain,” said Christopher Kuzawa, a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. A five-year-old’s brain uses twice as much glucose as a full-grown adult.

The study appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

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