Is your teen a big fan of energy drinks (like Monster and Redbull), or sports drinks (like Gatorade)? If so, do they also smoke, spend inordinate amounts of time in front of device screens and enjoy other sugary beverages? Because according to researchers from the University of Minnesota and Duke University, there’s an association between sports/energy beverages and those behaviors.

“Among boys, weekly sports drink consumption was significantly associated with higher TV viewing; boys who regularly consumed sports drinks spent about one additional hour per week watching TV compared with boys who consumed sports drinks less than once per week,” said lead author Nicole Larson, PhD, MPH, RDN, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. “Boys who consumed energy drinks at least weekly spent approximately four additional hours per week playing video games compared to those who consumed energy drinks less than once per week.”

Though adolescent consumption of soda and fruit drinks is on the decline, sports and energy drinks have more than taken up the slack, tripling in recent years. Doctors have long been concerned with the caffeine content of energy drinks in particular, and at least on the surface it appears that they may give teens the extra pep needed to put in more hours using screen-based devices.

Scientists gathered data on 2,793 students from 20 schools across the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, with a median subject age of 14.4. They found that while sports drink consumption was associated with higher levels of activity and sports participation, the larger picture indicates that sports and energy drink consumption are part of a larger cluster of unhealthy teen behaviors.