Sweets and Candy Linked to Violent Adults
Study Says Aggressive Adults Ate Too Much Candy at Age 10
Oct 3, 2009
It is widely believed that the additives and colours used in candy can lead to bad behaviour in children. But a study by scientists in the Cardiff University takes the link between candy and poor behavior one step further.
The study found that ten-year-old children who consumed sweets on a daily basis were shown to be significantly more likely to be convicted of violent crimes as adults. The study published in the October issue of The British Journal of Psychiatry is the first to document the long term effects of excessive candy consumption and the study already led to some heated reactions.
The Study on Child Candy Consumption and Violence
The British Cohort Study was a continuous longitudinal study, with the subjects being babies born in the United Kingdom in one week in 1970 and their families, a data set which comprises nearly 17,200 individuals.
The aim of study was to gather information about health, education, social and economic circumstances. Scientists at the Cardiff University looked at the records of the participants and found that 69% of those who were convicted of violent crime by the age of 34 had consumed sweets on a daily basis as children. This figure was compared to the 42% of their non-violent counterparts. The significant difference remained even after other factors such as parenting, location and education were taken into account.
The Link Between Sweets and Aggression
The leader of the study, Dr Simon Moore, believes that, "Giving children sweets and chocolate regularly may [prevent them from] learning how to wait to obtain something they want. Not being able to defer gratification may push them towards more impulsive behaviour, which is associated with delinquency."
Dr Moore, who has carried out other research into young offenders, was already aware that problematic youths had nutritional issues and as a group, they tend to consume a lot of candy. Further explanations include the theory that these violent adults were already difficult as children and were more likely to be given sweets as an incentive to be quiet or perhaps that, as adults, they are addicted to additives.
Food and Candy Additives and Violence
The link between additives in food and, particularly, luridly coloured candy and anti-social, detrimental behaviour is now well-established.
There are many studies which have linked poor nutrition to violent behaviour going as far back as the 1960s but, for some reason, this information has been largely ignored. The UK Action on Additives campaign has highlighted seven colour food additives as particularly harmful; they are only now becoming the subject of European regulatory legislation. Even so, the action is to add a warning label to the foods containing these additives rather than a complete ban on their use.
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