sugar too much?

Irina Gonzalez

Updated December 23, 2023·7 min read

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Boba tea, also known as bubble tea, is taking over TikTok — and the hearts of young people. You may have seen videos of mom-and-daughter boba tea dates, the autistic, nonverbal teen who loves boba tea or this tween’s boba-themed birthday party. Even toddlers seem to love boba tea.

Created in Taiwan, boba tea is a milky, sugary, iced black tea featuring tapioca “pearls” and any number of flavored syrups, fruit blends and other fun toppings. The beverage made its way to the United States in the ’90s, when it was embraced by young Asian Americans. Decades later, American tweens of all backgrounds are now hooked, thanks in part, as Bloomberg notes, to its popularity among TikTokers and its association with Korean pop stars like Blackpink. Boba tea shops have became the go-to after-school hangout for many, in addition to being a tween birthday party destination of choice.

Below, tween boba fans explain their fascination with the drink. And if you’re a parent wondering how healthy these sugary, caffeinated concoctions your kids are slurping up via their oversized straws, keep reading: Experts are here to break it all down.

Why do kids love boba tea so much?

“My daughter has been into bubble tea since she was about 7 or 8 years old,” says Megan Kinch, an electrician and mom of Esther, 11, in Toronto, Canada. Kinch herself has been familiar with boba tea since the trend hit Toronto in the early 2000s.

Esther tells Yahoo Life that she and her friends all love bubble tea “because it comes in so many different flavors, so if you don’t like one kind, there’s always another.” Plus, it’s “so pretty and tasty.”

LaToya Jordan, a New York-based writer and mom of Billie, 11, says her daughter has been into boba since she was 10, “when her friends introduced her to boba after school one day.” It helps that there’s an abundance of boba tea shops where they live.

“I really like the tapioca pearls,” says Billie. “A lot of my friends also like boba. We get boba for lunch sometimes.”

Writer Kate Wehr of Montana remembers ordering boba tea with the traditional chewy tapioca pearls when she was in college. But it’s the newer “popping boba” — pearls that burst when consumed — that have “really taken off with the kids” her daughter Rebekha, 12, hangs out with.

“I like the popping bubbles because it’s exciting,” says Rebekha, who recently asked to go to the mall for boba as part of her birthday party — an idea she got from a friend who did the same. She’s not alone; Billie in New York had a boba-themed party for her 11th birthday.

“In addition to the space rental, my husband and I paid for each kid to have two boba drinks during the three-hour party,” Jordan Yahoo Life. “I also spent a lot of time the night before scouring Pinterest for boba tea cakes. I used fondant and transformed two small store-bought cakes into a cute but very lopsided boba tea cake.”

Billie, who made boba earrings and has boba plushies from her birthday party, says that having bubble tea paraphernalia is part of the culture. “If you see something boba, you’re like, ‘Hey, I like boba, too!’”

Esther has bubble tea earrings and boba stickers on her computer. But Rebekha says that some kids she knows “don’t really like boba as much as the products.” They don’t actually drink the bubble tea, but might wear boba-themed socks or other merch to be part of the trend.

Should parents worry about the caffeine and sugar in boba tea?

Kinch isn’t concerned about the amount of caffeine in the bubble tea. “It’s way healthier than [soda] and it’s not like an energy drink or a Panera lemonade with its near-toxic levels of caffeine,” she says. “I think it’s appropriate for tweens to experiment with tea and sugar drinks.”

Jordan, meanwhile, doesn’t want her daughter Billie to “have a daily boba habit or wake up in the mornings and need boba,” she says. “But a couple of times a month is fine with me.”

Dr. Anh Le, a pediatrician at One Medical in California, tells Yahoo Life that boba tea has minimal health benefits. She encourages parents to think of boba as more of a “treat” food — though she admits it’s one of her favorite drinks when she wants to enjoy a sweet treat herself.

“High-sugar drinks are unhealthy for kids as it can lead to excess weight gain and subsequently increase risk for heart disease, fatty liver and diabetes,” Le explains. “It can also increase the risk of dental cavities.” She compares a 16-ounce serving of boba tea — which contains nearly 40 grams of sugar — to an equivalent amount of soda (52 grams) or orange juice (about 42 grams of sugar). Because the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than 8 ounces of juice a day for kids between the ages of 7 and 18, boba tea intake should be similarly restricted since it contains a similar amount of sugar.

Dr. Amy Middleman, chief of the division of academic pediatrics and adolescent medicine at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, doesn’t like describing any food as “good” or “bad,” but says parents should consider how the food’s components are balanced for nutritional needs. “This type of treat should be offered in moderation,” she tells Yahoo Life. And parents should make sure “that the child has other needed nutrients throughout the day.”

Le says that parents should also be mindful about the amount of caffeine their kids are getting from boba drinks. “Caffeine has a risk for affecting sleep, increasing irritability and [affecting] concentration,” she explains. She doesn’t recommend giving drinks with caffeine to younger kids and, for teens, says that a safe amount of caffeine over 24 hours is 75 mg to 100 mg of caffeine.

“Depending on the type of tea used, the amount of caffeine in an 8-ounce boba tea drink can vary from 30 mg to 50 mg,” she says. Your older kid will get the maximum amount of caffeine with just one standard-sized 16-ounce drink. “I would recommend [reducing] the caffeine amount to as little as possible.”

But, as a parent, Kinch believes that the concern around what kids consume is overblown. “Younger people are drinking less alcohol than ever before, and very young people seem on trend,” she says. “I think any kind of moral panic around kids drinking tea with tapioca balls in it is very much misplaced.”

Kinch sees Esther’s love of bubble tea as an extension of expressing herself — like when she puts bubble tea and cat sushi stickers on her laptop or occasionally goes to get bubble tea on her own or with a friend. “It’s a way of being independent and having her own tastes and expertise,” Kinch says.

The takeaway

Rebekha doesn’t see the boba tea trend dying down anytime soon. For parents who want to keep their kid’s boba drinks on the healthier side, Le recommends limiting caffeine by choosing herbal teas or fruit slushies, asking for low-sugar options at boba shops and avoiding supersizing drinks.

“I encourage parents to also involve their child in these decisions,” she says. “We want to set them up to develop lifelong habits, so letting them know our concerns about the drinks and how we can make healthier choices will hopefully become established in their minds early on, so they can continue to make healthy decisions as adults.”