Obviously, giving kids sweets leads to a life of crime

Sometimes a study comes along that is just so ... well, words fail me. Let's turn to the researchers' words instead.

The introduction, from researchers at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, states: "We hypothesise that excessive confectionery consumption increases the likelihood of violence in adulthood."

Seriously.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers used the British Cohort Study to obtain information on the frequency of sweets consumption at age 10 and on violence convictions by age 34.

They found that 69% of people convicted of violence had in fact eaten sweets nearly every day when they were younger. Only 42% of those who had been nonviolent until age 34 reported such daily consumption.

The study concludes: "One plausible mechanism is that persistently using confectionery to control childhood behaviour might prevent children from learning to defer gratification, in turn biasing decision processes towards more impulsive behaviour, biases that are strongly associated with delinquency. Furthermore, childhood confectionery consumption may nurture a taste that is maintained into adulthood, exposing adults to the effects of additives often found in sweetened food, the consumption of which may also contribute towards adult aggression. Moreover, although parental attitudes were associated with adult violence, the effect of diet was robust having controlled for these attitudinal variables. Irrespective of the causal mechanism, which warrants further attention, targeting resources at improving childhood diet may improve health and reduce aggression."

I'm not making this up. Here's the study. It was published in the October issue of British Journal of Psychiatry.

-- Tami Dennis

Photo: Please! Be careful with those things. Credit: Bryan Chan / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Chris Williams]

"Your Honour it was the Chocolate Buttons that made me knife her - honest!"

"It was nothing to do with ill-disciplined, self-centred, godless living that made me do it."

"Your Honour, I live in a country that invents medical and chemical causes for all my behaviour. It doesn't hurt my little feelings when they tell me I have ADHDAHDH sic, or PTSD, or ME, or whatever. This is the way I've been instructed all my school life, (well til age 11 anyway). My teachers and all my fathers told me, 'son it ain't never yer fault, never admit nuffin' - it's them b'stds out there what's ter blame, see' - so that's why I'm a miserable, angry, selfish, cowardly bully - your Honour and that's why I knifed me missus (well she weren't me misses, not proper like, coz I was never brought up to comply with rules, laws, convention and morals) - it were those damned candy bars - weren't my fault, like....."

Er, "Not Guilty by the way"

"Anyone in the Jury got a Hershey Bar?"

[Kristen]

Can't see the study without an institutional subscription...

[Traveling Tom]

Alternatively, children growing up under difficult socioeconomic conditions and troubles environments, and one in which violent activities may be more observable by children, may be one in which consumption of confectionery is higher. In other words, consumption of confectionery is an incidental variable.

Having said that, feed kids lots of sugar and they bounce off the walls.

[Gil R]

Cause & effect? Nonsense. Correlation? Probably yes.
Further study will find that the candy consumption is a marker for later antisocial behavior.
Impulsivity is hard-wired. Impulsivity is a major factor in antisocial behavior in youth and adults.
I'd wager these same people also indulge in drug and alcohol use in excess.

[Michael Goetz]

Couldn't it be that parents who allow children to eat excessive sweets also fail in other areas of parenting? While failing to instill healthy eating habits, perhaps they also fail to instill respect for others.

[cybele]

There are way too many things that were not accounted for in that study. (Though I've only been able to read the abstract online and other coverage.)

First, the consumption was self reported. It is entirely possible that the "shame" or "naughtiness" of candy is not admitted by non-violent people.

Second, the number of convicted violent participants was 34. And 69% of those reported their daily candy habit. Out of a pool of 17,415 polled.

The big question is were there other issues at work in those households. A history of violence within the homes, poverty, poor nutrition and of course history of addiction.

Honestly, I think that the bigger issue is how many of those children WANTED to each candy every day.

[Carol]

Nutty! I saw this elsewhere first, but if there's a grain of truth to it, I'm a serial killer. I grew up in the '60s and '70s when all kids ate candy all the time. My mother always had M&Ms, Oreo's and ice cream around the house. And Coke with real sugar.

Today I'm fit, thin, athletic and still eat candy daily (at least).

[greg]

Oh, come on now, this is just nonsense. How much money gets wasted by these studies? Couldn't that money be better spent? Candy does not cause violence! Cavities, yes. Violence, no.
I feel like beating up some stupid British scientist. Let me put down this Hershey bar first.

[friend of Randy]

Why is that so unbelievable? What's inside the confectionery treats? For reference, please see this LA Times article about food dyes.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/13/health/he-foodcolor13

With this and all the unnatural things we're putting in our bodies, it's amazing that our bodies last so long without getting degenerating diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis, and others...

[littlebadwolf]

Just don't try telling this to the families and friends of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Even if it is accurate.

[sophie]

We not only live in an age of excess, but we live in an age when we are unable to recognize that we live in an age of excess. It's unnatural to eat too much sugar, whether in chocolate or other foods. The imbalance manifests itself, but we are too obtuse to recognize it.

[blurshow.com]

Oh it all makes sense now, and those are jail bars on the chocolates in the picture : )

[JewelD]

"One plausible mechanism is that persistently using confectionery to control childhood behaviour might prevent children from learning to defer gratification, in turn biasing decision processes towards more impulsive behaviour, biases that are strongly associated with delinquency."

The failure to learn and tolerate deferred gratification has been shown in other studies to be strongly linked to later impulsiveness and consequent crime as well.

That was the point. Meaning, that it could be useful to educate parents and teachers of the importance of teaching these skills to kids.

Read for comprehension next time, instead of just making a joke of it.

[dice8up]

what the article didn't or forget to mention, purposely and unknowingly is that, behavioral children pattern is shaped by parental influence. It does give hints though that, candies were used by parents of these kids to pacify wants. And that has carried over to adulthood. So that whenever they want something, they want it quickly like a candy stuff in their mouth. And when they couldn't have it, results to violent behavioral impulse.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Hence, we have parents to show us how to be not foolish.

[dice8up]

Why not simply say that, parents of these kids failed to teach deferred gratification? Instead of saying, eating sweets gives rise to violence!

The problem with our thinking is that, we are afraid to say the obvious.

[Bill]

Just added my own blog this month. I need some inspiration. Thx.

[Charles Younger]

"Why not simply say that, parents of these kids failed to teach deferred gratification? Instead of saying, eating sweets gives rise to violence!"

Because the study didn't try to measure whether parents "deferred gratification." They looked for and found a correlation between eating sweets and violent behavior. Everything else is speculation. The headline "Obviously, giving kids sweets leads to a life of crime," is Ms. Dennis' characterization. One sure to generate comments.

There seems to be a lot more interest in the UK than here in the U.S. on the effects of food additives on behavior and this study is one of many. For example, see:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-479768/Watchdog-warns-E-numbers-make-children-misbehave.html

C.M.Younger

[GH]

Excess is always a probloem as it teaches self entitlement without responsibility or effort. This is the problem not chocolate.

[CandyLand]

WOO!

Now I have an excuse for knocking up my local knitting store!!!

The Three Musketeers promised me I'd have a 45% less chance of getting caught!

[Richard Risemberg]

What's so implausible about this? The hypothesis is primarily that overindulgent parents raise spoiled children that become spoiled adults, who have to obtain everything they want the moment they want it, and who are accustomed to being deferred to.

It's not a great leap to see that such persons might be more inclined to get into bar fights or engage in spousal abuse.

And they point out in clear careful language that the association was strong but that "causal effect" was unknown--was it the sweets directly, or the constant indulgence?

A reasonable study. Why mock it?

[Eric Scaraglino]

As a child that grew up in America, I have always heard several stereotypes about things from United Kingdom. One of these include the fact that candy in England actually has an insane more amount of sugar compared to candy from America. I even saw this joke on the Simpsons show. That brings me to a question, does this survey assume only to the people of United Kingdom since candy in United Kingdom has more sugar compared to other types of candy? Maybe it does affect their behavior by a wider margin since they consume more sugar in candy, assuming the people and candy is ONLY from United Kingdom.

[Ramon]

Can they explaing Lamar Odom? The Lakers Forward is Criminaly Guilty of being a sweet tooth, and that is no secrete. He has the sweetest personality anyone can have, especialy for a superstar. What a bunch of engish rubish!

[Leisureguy]

Why are you so incredulous? Is there something in the methodology of the study that makes you suspect the validity of the results? I don't understand the reason for the tone of your report. Please explain.

[suzi]

I'm in my fifties. I grew up on a health-food, no dessert-style diet. I never ate candy much at all until the last few years when I started to get rid of all the repressive stuff about food I learned growing up. It's only 11 AM and I just ate some candy; I'm a much happier person than I was. Seriously, aren't there larger problems to think about? I can't really believe that people who commit crimes do it because of candy. Maybe they do it because of capitalism!

[Kathleen]

The report sounds entirely plausible to me. Kids who grew up consuming large amounts of sugar became parents who considered it normal to douse their own kids in it. Sugar is very bad for human beings as well as other mammals. It certainly contributes to obesity and general poor health.