This was previously published in our April 2026 issue.

As the sun begins to rise, the familiar sounds of an alarm jolts teenagers awake across the globe, forcing them into their busy day. Barely able to pry their eyes open, teens begin getting ready for another day at school. Their minds linger on one thing: a boost of energy that can best be provided by an easily accessible energy drink.

Teens can be seen brightly colored energy drinks as outfit accessories in school, at the gym, and even when hanging out with their friends. The energy drink has become a routine for most teens — relying on caffeine and artificial sugars instead of sleep to get them through the day.

Energy drinks, beverages containing high amounts of caffeine, sugar, and other stimulants, are often defined by their vibrant can colors, flashy packaging, and their long-standing dominance in the caffeine industry with teenage audiences. Like any organization, energy drink companies strategically market their product toward untapped segments or groups within their market.

For example, Alani Nu leans into the “clean-girl” aesthetic—popularized by influencers like Hailey Bieber and Bella Hadid, and includes simple and natural makeup routines, slicked back hair, and sleek outfits — focusing their marketing towards teenage girls. As a whole, most energy drink companies market their products towards the busy teenager lifestyle, and student-athletes are left questioning whether they are being taken advantage of. Are these bright and tasty beverages doing more harm than good?

Should these companies be trusted to curate a drink that will benefit a student throughout their busy day?

Energy drinks play a pivotal role in the everyday lives of students, and more specifically, student-athletes, being marketed to them as a beverage that will improve their physical and mental performance. According to the National Library of Medicine —an official website of the United States government — energy drinks are the second most popular dietary supplement consumed by American teens and young adults, next to multivitamins.

However, several sources, including the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, suggest that if not consumed in mindful moderation by limiting energy drinks to one beverage daily, energy drinks can cause harmful and long-lasting effects for teenagers.

The American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine claims that high energy drink consumption among youth — exceeding one energy drink per day — is concerning due to the range of reported adverse reactions attributed to excessive caffeine consumption, ranging from mild sleep disturbances to death.

Dr. Catherine Hessick, a visiting assistant professor of marketing at Muhlenberg College, believes that energy drink companies market their products differently from many other products.

“What makes energy drinks interesting is that there are a lot of negative side effects, but marketers are not putting those [side effects] out there,” Hessick said, “because if you learned about all the negative side effects of these energy drinks and overconsumption, most people wouldn’t buy the product.”

Despite the alarming side effects hidden by fancy marketing, energy companies have been around for decades. The first modern energy drink, Red Bull, was created in Austria and has been around since April 1, 1987.

Since then, the energy drink market has expanded to the US, allowing brands like Monster Energy, 5-Hour Energy, Bang Energy, and Celsius to rise up, each iteration targeting a slightly different group of people.

Many different energy drink brands have found their own specific target audience to market their product to. If every brand were to target the same group, they would all be fighting for the same money from the same consumers, which would be counterproductive. Broadening and narrowing the scope of the market, depending on each company’s needs, allows these companies to expand products and increase sales.

Red Bull, for example, targets athletes and people who seek performance and adrenaline, while other energy drink brands target different audiences.

Similar to many other companies, Red Bull strategically structures their messaging to their desired audience. One of the many methods of messaging is the usage of slogans.

The Red Bull company is known for a popular slogan with the line, “Red Bull gives you wings.” This catchy phrase does more than just promise a boost of energy; it misleadingly promotes the drink as a tool for high-level performance.

EHS Athletic Director Becky George acknowledges the impact of energy drinks on athletes’ performance and has a contradicting opinion on their functionality.

“I have seen student-athletes [who] weren’t performing at their peak performance, and I believe strongly that in a couple of situations that I’ve witnessed over the years, [it] was due directly to them consuming an energy drink prior to competition,” Rebecca George said.

Energy drinks can have a counteractive effect on athletes due to their ability to affect the cardiovascular system. While these athletes may feel a boost of energy when consuming these beverages, energy drinks force the heart to work harder, which can lead to fainting, palpitations, fatigue, and lightheadedness.

One of the most successful energy drink brands, Alani Nu, has taken over the energy drink market. They discovered an untapped market: teenage girls. With their bright can designs, aesthetically pleasing advertisements, and prominent social media presence, Alani Nu has become a staple for teens at EHS.

The brand can be seen throughout the school in the hands of band members, The Stinger staff, members of the musical, athletes, and so many more.

EHS Varsity Dance Team member, senior Kylie Lewis, indulges in an Alani Nu energy drink each day.

“I drink them because they are really tasty,” Lewis said. “I can drink them every day because other brands aren’t as appealing.”

Most products are acceptable in moderation, but issues arise when a food or drink product is consumed daily without a concern for one’s health.

Energy drink companies often fail to make this concern known to consumers, especially teenagers. Due to the lack of warnings, some students consume multiple energy drinks on a daily basis, leading to codependency.

“They’re relying on [energy drinks],” Rebecca George said. “It sounds like that is definitely an addiction, because if you’re getting the proper amount of sleep, you shouldn’t need that.”

While energy-boosting beverages such as coffee are also presented as an option for teenagers to quickly boost their energy, energy drinks prevail as most teenagers’ pick due to their convenience, high caffeine concentration, and flavorful taste.

While some sugary coffee options appeal to a teenage audience, energy drinks have a diverse range of flavor options which often attracts them more.

Additionally, teenagers can find double to triple the amount of caffeine in an energy drink than in a cup of coffee, and it’s only a tab away. A prevalent marketing tactic for energy drink companies is to use celebrity endorsements.

Celsius collaborated with Grammy-nominated American rapper and singer Flo Rida, famous bodybuilder and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, influencer David Dobrik, actor Jonah Hill, as well as various athletes, including those in college football and Formula 1.

Similarly, Alani Nu has partnered with figures such as Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Addison Rae, and Whitney Simmons. Many of these influencers reeled in the attention of teens and young adults because of their status.

The connection between sales and celebrity endorsements is something that some consumers ponder. However, psychology has proven that a main reason for consumers’ trust in the endorsement by famous figures a concept called “social proof.”

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that follows the human desire to fit in. When a person sees an influential person they admire, or one who is popular among their peers, it’s a common reaction to attempt to mimic that influencer.

Beverages such as Red Bull commonly have athletes market their product, while beverages such as Bang Energy commonly have gaming influencers or online streamers market their product —playing into each brand’s targeted marketing.

“It’s all about matching [the] influencer and endorser to the product. So if you look at some of these energy drinks, you might see that they’re [endorsed by] athletes,” Hessick said. “They’re people who are really busy, and they will talk about how the energy drink helps them achieve all of these things that they can achieve. It helps them keep going.”

While celebrities are paid large sums of money to promote an energy drink, many everyday people do it online for free. YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and TikTok videos are flooded with trends revolving around energy drinks.

The “Suicide” or “Graveyard” trend became popularized, as young social media users began mixing every energy drink flavor they could find into one drink. Additionally, overconsumption is being romanticized across social media platforms with can-crushing trends. Alani Nu continuously amasses a large following across social media platforms, with 1.4 million followers on Instagram, 958.7 thousand followers on TikTok, and 33.7 thousand subscribers on YouTube.

Along with influencers, many other social media users — such as fitness enthusiasts or college students — use their social media profiles to endorse energy drinks as ambassadors. Official energy drink ambassadors often receive free products from the brand and can utilize their influence to create career opportunities in marketing or social media.

Because of the staggering amount of benefits, one EHS fitness enthusiast, EHS senior and volleyball player Sander Houtz, has attempted to get the attention of energy drink companies like Alani in order to become an ambassador; however, his attempts have not yet proven successful.

“I was drinking [Alanis] a lot, and ambassadors get free stuff,” Houtz said. “So I’ll take free energy drinks that I’m going to be drinking anyway.”

Going beyond content creators’ influence on social media, energy drink companies put extensive thought into what packaging design best caters to their audience, considering aspects of the packaging’s colors, graphics, and fonts.

“If you have a product that is geared towards women, you tend to use the pinks, the purples, and the yellows. Where if it’s men, you tend to use more blues, and oranges, and reds,” Hessick said in regards to packaging strategies.

For the Monster Energy brand, bold fonts, exotic graphics, and extreme colors are used to embody the rebellious lifestyle of many of its teenage male consumers.

Contrary to Monster Energy’s packaging, Alani Nu’s packaging contains neat fonts, fruit-themed graphics, and complementary colors, which heavily embody the fitness “clean-girl” lifestyle. The bright, pastel, stimulating patterns and designs Alani Nu uses are intended to target a demographic of young, mainly female, consumers.

“I think [Alani Nu cans are] labeled towards our generation,” Houtz said. “I think that the bright colors really attract the eyes of the teen.”

The packaging choices made to market the product, not only reveals the audience, but it also reveals the intended impact on its consumers.

Powerlifter and EHS senior Christian Hernandez chose C4 energy drinks over competitors due to its marketing.

“C4’s are more geared towards sports performance, rather than Alanis or Celsius’, which are geared towards everyday focus,” Hernandez said.

With packaging catered towards teenagers, marketing companies can utilize their consumers as their own personal marketers, which has allowed for energy drinks such as

Alani Nu and Celcius to spread throughout high schools rapidly. Once students begin to see the new packaging and flavors of Alani, they will be enticed to get a taste of the new product, as well as accessorize with the new flavor’s colorful can.

With marketing strategies that rely on high school students and influencers to endorse the products, energy drink companies are able to market their products to adolescents without directly addressing them as their targeted audience.

“It’s very similar to how vaping is advertised towards teenagers,” Hessick said. “Even though they’ll never come out and say vaping is [marketed] towards young adults, the products, and how they market them, is very clearly [marketed] towards young adults.”

Since quick boosts of energy are only a pop-tab away, it can become easy for students to rely heavily on energy drinks to keep them awake and productive throughout the day. But when energy drinks are not consumed in moderation, a co-dependency, similar to that of a drug addict, are forming.

“Don’t start drinking energy drinks,” Houtz said, “It’s when you start that it gets bad, because then you just want to do it again. It’s kind of like a drug. You just want to drink another one, and another one.”

Overconsumption imposes possible health risks to adolescents

Taurine, the sulfur-containing amino acid, is unknown to 50 percent of EHS students, and yet it is a common additive found in energy drinks. Although it’s an essential amino acid and helps muscle recovery, it can be harmful in high doses, frequently consumed through energy drinks.

Despite not knowing what they are actually drinking, a total of 36(46 percent of respondents) students in the Emmaus High School building consume it on a daily basis according to a Google Form with 157 respondents.

Madeline Vagnoni, a West Chester University student, having a Bachelor’s Degree in nutrition and graduating from her diabetic internship in May with her Master’s believes excess caffeine, especially among teenagers, can lead to medical concerns.

“When you have a lot of caffeine, it can put a lot of stress on your cardiovascular system, so it puts pressure on your heart,” Vagnoni said. “You don’t want to put your body under that excess state of stress.”

The cardiovascular system is in charge of supplying blood throughout the body. Energy drinks, which contain caffeine, a known stimulant, can cause an increased heart rate, raised blood pressure, clogged arteries, and multiple other health complications which can affect the cardiovascular system.

In addition to caffeine, guarana — a fruit frequently found in the Amazon basin —contains seeds which are best known for their caffeine-dense properties.

“[Guarana] can be beneficial in [its] natural form,” Vagnoni said, “since they’re very high in antioxidants; however, the processing that they go through to get these drinks, they lose their antioxidant properties.”

Along with these ingredients, l-carnitine tartrate, an amino acid derivative that transports fatty acids to the mitochondria of cells to be burned for fuel according to healthline, can be found within energy drinks. Due to l-carnitine tartrate being a dietary supplement, adolescents’ desire to consume energy drinks may be fueled by body dysmorphia or eating disorders, creating additional problems for adolescents’ physical and mental health due to energy drinks.

Tina George, who has been in the behavioral health world for roughly 30 years, has a Master’s in Social Work, and is currently involved in the Student Athlete Leadership Team (SALT) program at EHS, has similar worries regarding energy drinks. Tina George held a workshop for SALT members on the relationship between energy drinks and their athletic performance, in which she highlighted nearly identical concerns for the wellness of student athletes.

“Anytime you’re being active, and you’re exerting any kind of energy, any kind of activity, you’re going to be elevating your heart rate and blood pressure. Then caffeine does [kicks in and], it elevates heart rate and blood pressure, so these two combinations are not great,” Tina George said.

Given the relationship between caffeine and the body, Tina George explains that caffeine consumption prior to an athletic event may counteract optimal athletic performance.

“Caffeine stimulates every organ, every system of your body; it stimulates it with the purpose of pushing any kind of energy you have left in your body to the surface for you to utilize,” Tina George said. “But we know that it only gives you about five extra minutes of energy followed by extreme lethargy.”