Energy Drinks
Sports drinks like Gatorade serve a different purpose than energy drinks. Energy drinks are usually used to boost short term performance-some runners have been drinking coffee or tea to enhance performance for some time now, energy drinks offer a different way to do this-there are sugar free versions of most energy drinks to address concerns with high sugar consumption. As with most things relating to nutrition, it's a balancing act as too much caffeine can hurt performance-and even for those not exerting themselves physically, there can be the "crash". As for drinking skimmed milk, many adults don't tolerate dairy products well. In the end you have to find what products work for you, what you enjoy drinking and as others have said, read the labels.
