‘Toddlers and Tiaras’ Controversy: Mom Defends Feeding Daughter ‘Pageant Crack’

ABC News’ Andrea Canning and Taylor Behrendt report:

Alana Thompson is a very first-grader from rural McIntyre, Georgia, who is generating waves on the pageant circuit by embracing her Southern roots and demonstrating off plenty of moves.

She is a normal on the hit TLC present “Toddlers and Tiaras,” where her self-produced nickname, Honey Boo Boo, has caught.

Images: Within “Toddlers and Tiaras”

But perhaps what 6-12 months-previous Alana has turn into very best recognized for on the present is how she will get all the power to be a star on the demanding pageant phase.

Her mother, June Shannon, is stirring up a controversy of her own with a concoction she designed to give her daughter a kick on those long pageant times.

“My particular juice is heading to assist me win,” Alana says in one of the demonstrate’s episodes. “My Go-Go Juice is kicking in appropriate now.”

Shannon helps make Alana’s “Go-Go Juice” herself using a mix of component Mountain Dew and element Red Bull, two properly-known vitality drinks.

One particular can of each of the two drinks merged includes about the very same amount of caffeine as two cups of coffee.

Shannon turned to Go-Go Juice after obtaining that the two bags of Pixy Stixs, the powdered candy in a wrapper that resembles a drinking straw, and is known in the pageant entire world as “pageant crack,” she was feeding Alana were not sufficient to preserve her alert all day in the course of pageant competitions.

“When they do get on phase you have to be alive and…your persona has to shine a extended day,” Shannon advised “Good Morning The us.”&#one hundred sixty “A pageant day can last from 7 in the morning to six,7,8,9, 10 at night time, so executing and acquiring a kid up that early and enduring all day with out a rest, you have to energize their body.”

“There are much even worse items,” she stated, defending her option.&#one hundred sixty “I could be offering her booze.”

Shannon also says that nfl wholesale jerseys she is not by yourself in her caffeinated solution, noting that sugar highs and caffeine fixes are a staple on the pageant circuit.

“Everybody does it,” she told “GMA.” “There are typical individuals who give their children this, so why is it these kinds of a massive concern with us pageant moms that do it all weekend to keep our youngsters energized and awake?”

“GMA” noticed youthful elegance contestants at a pageant in New York City eating Skittles candies and drinking caffeinated soda as early as 7 in the morning. At another pageant, in Austin, Texas, there also was no shortage of “pageant crack” to be located, consumed morning hours to night.

In accordance to a 2011 report from authentic jerseys wholesale nfl the American Academy of Pediatrics, too significantly caffeine for a young child can lead to neurological and cardiovascular problems. Medical doctors also say that as well considerably caffeine and sugar can to lead to a danger jersey wholesale of physical dependence and addiction.

To critics who say that this sort of a high sum of caffeine at these kinds of a young age could endanger Alana’s health now and in the foreseeable future, Shannon states her daughter is a properly-modified and energetic six year old who commonly eats a nutritious diet and is usually on the transfer when she’s not competing on the pageant circuit.

Asked if she is worried that her daughter may turn out to be addicted to sugar, she replied, “I don’t.”

“She’s got meat on her,” she said of her daughter’s physique. “She’s not skinny but, whether or not skinny or unwanted fat, I am still going to enjoy my young children irregardless. I could treatment significantly less if they get up to one,000 lbs I am nonetheless likely to love them.”

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