Candy Linked To Violence In Study

T Murphy writes "A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence. An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development. The scientists stress they don't imply candy should be removed from a child's diet, although they do recommend moderation. The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. The study can be found here, but the full text is behind a paywall."

Comments

umm

[Canazza]

correllation is not causation?

Re:umm

[matt4077]

correllation is not causation?

agggh! Read this: The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style.

Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you? They actively try to exclude other causes, which is what "controls for" means. Any other ideas for root causes that do not include those controlled for? Or were you just trying to be smart with a nice one-liner because it worked so well for others?

Re:umm

[DMiax]

No, the act of causing some effect is not at all related to the act of becoming a small town in minnesota.

Re:umm

[Canazza]

"A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34"

It doesn't say how much of an increased chance, and whether or not other rewards (such as toys, or non-candy foodstuffs) would also increase this. Is it the candy that's causing the impulsive behaviour or the rewards themselves? If it's the Candy, which chemical, or mixture of chemicals, is causing it and is it contained in all candy?
The article doesn't say, and I'm certainly not paying to read the whole thing.

Eating Candy at the age of 10 does not put you in jail 24 years later.

Re:umm

[camperslo]

If the use of short-term rewards for behavior affects the level of violence in people later in life, perhaps it may be worthwhile to re-examine the use of treats as an aid in training dogs?

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow there buddy, you're getting all technical and Scientific here. This is psychology/psychiatry, not Science. Relax, it's just a joke.

Some people take jokes and pseudoscience way too seriously.

Re:umm

[CarpetShark]

Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you?

In this case? Yes.

From another article summarising the same research (might be paraphrasing slightly): "We tried to control for other factors such as poverty..."

from the article: "Using sweets to quiet noisy children might just reinforce problems for later in life."

So yes, basically this has nothing to do with candy. It's just the well known phenomena of behavioural psychology, whereby rewarding people for bad behaviour encourages bad behaviour. To publish a study about this with "candy" as the focus is at best stupid, and at worst, highly disingenuous.

Re:umm

[AHuxley]

Eating Candy at the age of 10 does not put you in jail 24 years later???
Yet improving the diet of jail populations does seem to reduce violence too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
Thankfully smart people around the world will follow this up and I hope get some idea of diet, a spike in sugar, hormones, brain activity and ongoing development.
It might the a cheap colouring, cheap high-fructose corn syrup like structure or amount consumed during development.

Re:umm

[Dhalka226]

It doesn't say how much of an increased chance

Not directly, but the article does give sample size information and goes on to state: "About 69 percent of those who reported having committed violent acts also reported eating candy daily at age 10, compared to 42 percent of those who did not have a violent criminal past, the study authors noted."

Then again, even if you were correct I'm not sure what the point of bringing it up was. Read the full study if you're actually interested in what its findings are.

Is it the candy that's causing the impulsive behaviour or the rewards themselves?

A perfectly valid question. A little reading comprehension would indicate that they're not sure, given that two different groups are hypothesizing two different explanations based on the same data. In fact you've merely restated the two positions as a question.

If it's the Candy, which chemical, or mixture of chemicals, is causing it and is it contained in all candy?

Well, you're getting on the pedantic side now so far as criticizing the study goes. But yes, if it turns out to be the contents of the candy itself I'm sure they'll investigate that further. Unless you demonstrate who's saying that candy is the actual cause of the increased violence though, I'm not sure what the question has to do with what you quoted for your response, nor to what degree your new post somehow explains what you originally said.

Yes, correlation is not causation, and that's important to distinguish. If you're not simply going for brownie-point mods, then you're going to have to explain who said otherwise. Yours was a root comment, without parent, so one has to assume you're talking about the article. Well, it's not the title, which simply says "linked." Nor the summary, which explicitly uses "correlation." And hell, the article itself actually uses the phrase "correlation never shows causation." So other than the cheap mod points you're accused of, what the hell were either of your posts trying to accomplish?

My suspicion is that you're one of those people who thinks repeating memes without even a cursory examination of what he's referring to makes you sound smarter. If that's the case: No problem, carry on. Otherwise I suggest you articulate what value you're trying to add to the conversation more clearly.

Re:umm

[SerpentMage]

I work for a living in statistics, namely as a quant.

This study is crap!

17,000 tests, and 35 yes count them 35 had a violent crime. Of those 35, 65 percent said that they ate candy whereas in the 17000 only 42 said so.

See the flaw? The flaw is that the pool size of the violent criminals is actually way too small. Instead what they need to do is go to the prison system and see if the 65% number holds up. Because only with a big enough pool size can something be said.

Right now this study is crap, because the results could be the result of a sampling flaw.

If anything can be said of this study is that you need to verify it with the prison system.

Re:umm

[justthisdude]

correllation is not causation? agggh!

Hey, calm down Matt4077. Stop yelling at the nice slashdotters and I will give you a piece of candy.

Re:umm

[phoenix321]

To reevaluate your quote on bad behaviour reinfocement:

We taxpayers in today's semi-socialist Europe are constantly told that social security, unemployment benefits, welfare (and of course taxes) MUST be that high to keep poor people from starving - and rioting.

So we are told we're pacifying potential rioters by giving them money. Actual riots are always treated with more money. Most parties on the left and right tell us that all violence and problems will simply go away when we give poor people more money.

We basically do the candy vs. violence experiment in real-time, on a continent-wide scale and with no control group and no backout plan. And they're rioting daily in Malmo, Paris, Berlin and all other cities of at least a million people. They're burning cars, preferably BMW and Mercedes of the rich of course, in these cities, and they've totaled several thousand cars in this year alone. And yet we don't do anything about it other than pouring money in "good causes" for them.

I guess we should invest in arms manufacturers now.

Re:umm

[MrHanky]

No, we in "today's semi-socialist Europe" are not told that social security is to prevent riots, neither constantly nor only now and then. I was going to say that I'm not saying you're lying, but you are: show me where they say that (party sources, not internet dweebs like yourself), and show me sources for the daily riots in Paris, Berlin and Malmo.

Basically, you support your "argument" with nothing but utter bullshit. That ought to tell you something about yourself.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, the quality of the statistics the study relies on are at best utterly rubbish.

Re:umm

[jimicus]

It was published in a British journal - though I don't know where the research took place - and HFCS is quite unusual in most of the EU so it may not be that.

Though glucose syrup is certainly ubiquitous in sweet things sold in the UK and is apparently normally made from corn or wheat, it doesn't have a particularly high fructose content.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it the candy that's causing the impulsive behaviour or the rewards themselves? If it's the Candy, which chemical, or mixture of chemicals, is causing it and is it contained in all candy?
The article doesn't say, and I'm certainly not paying to read the whole thing.

Try reading the article again, which is stating it is not the candy but the way it is given as a reward

The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence.

Also reread this bit,

An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development.

Which is stating that it is not the candy itself but that the consumation of candy indicates poor dietry practices elsewhere.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, and I say this: Maybe children free to spend their pocket money on candy were getting less parental attention than children returning home every day from school to have a proper meal (i.e. not including candy). Maybe this falls under "parenting style", maybe not. Maybe children under stress (divorced parents, not having good grades, rejection from the opposite sex, getting bullied, whatever) were seeking refuge in candy to fight the stress. Does this fall under "impulsivity" or not? The study is based on teacher's reports. How well did the teachers (think that they) know the children? Focusing at the age of 10 is another point, which stresses out the fact that the data originate from before puberty, a life period during which all sorts of stuff happen to a person.

On the other hand, it was kind of the researchers to state the following: "A possible explanation for the candy-violence association is that giving children sweets and chocolate regularly may prevent them from learning to delay gratification. That, in turn, may encourage impulsivity, which is linked to delinquency." Then again, imulsivity is *linked* to delinquency, which brings yet another correlation into play. Maybe a child not learning to be thankful for a treat will turn out to be a major asshole in the future, but not *necessarily* a violent offender.

In addition, I personally think that even scientists with >10 years training that certainly know statistics much better than me should force that lame journalist also give some correlation uncertainty bounds, if they want me to think any better of them. Oh well, maybe it *is* publish or perish...

So yes, correlation upon correlation is certainly not causation. For the present article I blame the following people:
- the so-called journalist, that published this article with a stupid headline and the only purpose of drawing our attention to the advertisements
- Richard Feynman, for not having stressed the term "cargo cult science" loud enough

Re:umm

[AHuxley]

Yes I tried express that with the work 'like'. Who knows what goes into candy when their are few rules other than no plastics, less heavy metals.

Re:umm

[thisnamestoolong]

I'm sorry to say it Matt, but Canazza has a point, in this particular example it really doesn't seem to be proven that this correlation does indeed = causation. How do we know that this is not a case of genetics -- impulsive, violence-prone parents pass the genes for their impulsive behavior down to their child. The child, by their genetic information, is already more likely to be impulsive and violent. The parents, being impulsive, are going to be more likely to reward their child gratuitously often. By this reasoning, children of impulsive parents would get more candy, and then grow up to be more violent than members of society as a whole, but those two facts would be two symptoms of a root cause, rather than one being an effect of the other. I'm not saying that the conclusions drawn by the study are wrong and mine is right, but I also see no control present in the study to rule out this equally plausible hypothesis, which, in my mind, would suggest that they ought to go back to the drawing board before spouting shit like this in public.

Re:umm

[jamesh]

This study is crap!

Sounds like somebody had too much candy as a child...

Re:umm

[necro81]

The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style.

That still does not imply causation, merely much more tight correlation. It could be that violent people simply like candy more, not that the candy led an otherwise good child to grow into a violent offender. It could be that there is yet another cause, beyond what the researchers controlled for, that is the cause of both the sweet tooth and violent behavior.

A way to make the causation argument more substantive would be to come up with a way to test their causation hypothesis:

The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence.

I'm guessing that this might be what's next for them.

Re:umm

[necro81]

xkcd said it better.

Re:umm

[Vanderhoth]

Putting aside the fact that the stats don't seem to add up. I could see parents inadvertently training their kinds to be criminals using candy.

My older sister (29) and I (28) were smacked around by our stepfather when we got in to trouble when we were younger, my younger brother (21) wasn't. I became a developer, my older sister is a cop, and my brother became bodywork mechanic in a "custom work" chop shop. He's constantly getting in trouble, He had several drinking and driving charges one of which he crashed his friends truck, He was caught with a kilo of weed that he was trying to sell, multiple speeding tickets, assault charges and the list goes on. He always seems to weasels his why out of jail some how.

So from my own experience negative reinforcement is much more effective then bribery. That being said there are other factors that could contribute. My sister and I have the same father. My brothers father died years back from Cirrhosis of the liver. His family have a history of alcoholism, my father's doesn't. Being considerably younger then my sister and I he may feel like an outcast, which could also contribute to his "acting out".

Re:umm

[morgan_greywolf]

This is psychology/psychiatry, not Science.

Do not conflate psychiatry and psychology. Psychiatry is a science, and uses an evidence-based system along with falsifiable theories. Psychiatry focuses on chemical imbalances in the brain and psychiatrists mostly prescribe drugs to control these chemical imbalances.

Psychology is a also a science, though theories are not all 100% evidence based. However, increasingly, the field of psychology has been becoming more scientific and following more scientific principles. Even the still very prevalent but somewhat fading theories of classical and modern behaviorism are based on scientific experimentation and study. Postmodern psychology works hand in hand with the fields of neuroscience and psychiatry to attempt to understand human behavior as basically being driven by chemical reactions and neural networks in the brain.

Re:umm

[LifesABeach]

Another correlation I have observed is that in 100% of all cases, Triple Felon Inmates with Diabetes do not eat candy, for long. Also, another observation, Researchers with nothing to show for their work can behave in predictable natures.

Re:umm

[SleepingWaterBear]

correllation is not causation? agggh! Read this: The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you? They actively try to exclude other causes, which is what "controls for" means. Any other ideas for root causes that do not include those controlled for? Or were you just trying to be smart with a nice one-liner because it worked so well for others?

It is entirely possible that he *does* know more about statistics than these researchers. As someone has already observed, the statistics behind this research are essentially flawed by having too small a pool size of violent criminals. I could point out a couple of other flaws in the study, including the question of how effective their approach to controlling for aggressivity is, but that seems unnecessary.

More importantly, correlation is not causation! It doesn't matter if you've corrected for a few factors. Even if you corrected for every possible factor, the possibility would remain that both events had some shared cause. There is *never* a time when correlation alone, without other evidence, can serve to establish causation.

There are a lot of people who seem to implicitly trust that someone who calls himself a scientist knows what he's doing. The truth is, the social sciences are mostly filled with people who struggled in their basic statistics courses, and never really learned the stuff. As a math major, I often tutored people in statistics classes, and the people in the social sciences statistics classes never had the sort of grasp of the material needed to do anything useful really. Having never understood statistics, they mostly learn by mimicking their research advisors, who never learned statistics either.

There are some researchers out there doing good work, but they are vastly outnumbered, and your default presumption of competence is totally unwarranted.

Re:umm

[flynt]

There has never been a *randomized* control clinical trial showing smoking causes cancer in humans. If you believe smoking causes cancer in humans, then you are somehow making an exception of your own rule. So, do you?

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a living in statistics, namely as a quant.

Aren't you the mathematical geniuses who screwed up the economy, though? How much should we really trust your math skills?

Re:umm

[CheshireCatCO]

While I agree that a sample of 35 isn't great statistics, the odds of having 69% of them in the candy-eating category if they WERE the same as the background population is under 0.05%, as I'm sure you know. (I just did a Monte Carlo simulation with 100000 trials.) So it's not the best study in the universe, but this is real human data: you take what you can get, particularly in sample size. It's not enough of a study to drive policy, but it's certainly enough to be publishable and enough to warrant further attention.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

"It could be that violent people simply like candy more, not that the candy led an otherwise good child to grow into a violent offender."

I second this. I'd think that most 10-year olds who are desperate for candy could probably get hold of it in various ways, unless they have exceptionally strict and controlling parents. If it's true that "10-year olds who want candy will get hold of it", then this survey really says that those who liked candy the most were also most likely to be caught for violence, and simply withholding candy might not have the intended effect.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that a sample of 35 isn't great statistics, the odds of having 69% of them in the candy-eating category if they WERE the same as the background population is under 0.05%, as I'm sure you know. (I just did a Monte Carlo simulation with 100000 trials.) So it's not the best study in the universe, but this is real human data: you take what you can get, particularly in sample size. It's not enough of a study to drive policy, but it's certainly enough to be publishable and enough to warrant further attention.

This is a good point - there are not that many violent people out there (despite what TV tells us)... So if you want to do some population based work in this area you're going to get low numbers.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

So yes, basically this has nothing to do with candy. It's just the well known phenomena of behavioural psychology, whereby rewarding people for bad behaviour encourages bad behaviour. To publish a study about this with "candy" as the focus is at best stupid, and at worst, highly disingenuous.

that was what the analysis showed - you're confusing results with interpretation

Re:umm

[Gilmoure]

Uh-oh. We've never spanked our kid and we let her keep a jar of candy in her room. 'Course, she's never been in any trouble at school, home or when away (Brownies, sleep overs). And before every candy holiday (Halloween, Christmas, Easter), we have to throw out all the left over candy. Darn kid seems to like eating vegetables more than candy. Weird!

And now that I think about it, my sister and I were never spanked growing up. And since we were raised by a single Mom who worked two jobs, we were pretty much allowed to run wild from after school until Mom got home around 9PM. Sister now owns her own manufacturing business (evil capitalist) and where I work, I have to posses a security clearance.

Re:umm

[necro81]

To modify a quip often rolled out in gun control debates: If we outlaw candy, then only violence-prone 10-year olds will have candy.

Re:umm

[shentino]

Ah, yes, but then you'd have to face the confounding factor of people in prison unjustly.

Yes, people do get jailed even when innocent.

Re:umm

[houghi]

Instead what they need to do is go to the prison system and see if the 65% number holds up.

While they are doing this in prison, they could investigate the dangers of breast milk. I am sure that a high percentage of criminals have been fed breastmilk and thus it will proove the dangers of it.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually - I think you are wrong, you are quoting the wrong sample size for a start. I think they did a pretty reasonable job with the stats. They are certainly citing stats research to back up their analytical choices.

If anything can be said of this study is that you need to verify it with the prison system.

that's a completely different type of study (it has been done, cited in the candy paper and supports their findings). You will sometimes find that certain events are rare but important to study - like serious violence.

Re:umm

[thisnamestoolong]

This is not even to mention that all of the data are entirely anecdotal -- and we are talking about children recalling childhood. The accuracy of adult memory has shown to be extremely suspect, never mind trying to remember what you used to eat when you were 7. Did I eat candy every day when I was 7? I have no frickin' clue! That is way too long ago for me to accurately remember. This is just bogus, bogus, bogus research all around.

Re:umm

[Mister Whirly]

What? Where are you from, China? In my country (USA) I know exactly what goes into all food items, because they have to list every ingredient right on the packaging. And they aren't "rules", they are LAWS that state what you can and cannot put into edible items.

Re:umm

[Mister Whirly]

My suspicion is that you're one of those people who thinks repeating memes without even a cursory examination of what he's referring to makes you sound smarter.

You must be new here.

Re:umm

[metrometro]

Yes, thank you. Sample is WAY too small.

It's worst than 35 people. They had 35 violent criminals multipled by (.65 - .42 extra candy eaters) = eight people. This finding is based on EIGHT FRICKIN PEOPLE reporting they ate candy as a child.

Re:umm

[buchner.johannes]

As far as I have seen, psychology students get a way better statistics education than any other field (e.g. CS, Astronomy, Physics, Medicine).
Generally, if you're a scientist, your knowledge of statistics should be good (confidence intervals and hypothesis testing come to mind).

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Republicans are mathematical geniuses now? When did that happen?

Re:umm

[ravenshrike]

Ah, but that means the study is measuring the wrong thing doesn't it? If the child eats candy, but also eats a well-balanced diet, then does he belong in this group? If the answer is no, then the metric they're using is flawed.

Re:umm

[RespekMyAthorati]

Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you?

If they are so-called "Social Scientists", then yes I do.
I have met several full professors in the Social Sciences whose ignorance of basic probability is shocking. And, if you don't understand probability, you will never understand statistics.

Re:umm

[Hognoxious]

Do you think that when the Chinese put powdered plastic in baby milk they stated it on the label?

Re:umm

[Hognoxious]

More importantly, correlation is not causation! It doesn't matter if you've corrected for a few factors. Even if you corrected for every possible factor, the possibility would remain that both events had some shared cause.

Which is causation. It's C causing A and B, not A causing B (or B causing A) but it's still a causation.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of at least a few. For example, we already know that poor children are more likely to commit crimes as adults. And that poor children have less healthy diets. And that frequent candy consumption is not a healthy diet.

Frankly failing to control for income in a study about crime is absurd -- it's entirely possible that they just discovered a convoluted way to detect poor children.

Re:umm

[Vanderhoth]

Like I said there are other factors that could contribute.

My wife's parents didn't believe in spanking and my wife turned out great... At least I think so. Her sister on the other hand is about as much of a female dog as someone could be. She's not violent, just conniving and has to make sure everyone around her is miserable. Coincidentally, my wife only likes the occasional chocolate, but her sister can't get enough of anything that has sugar in it.

I guess I have to say that I personally believe that there are too many factors contributing to how a person turns out to narrow it down to any one specific thing

Re:umm

[smarttaz]

Correlation STILL doesn't imply causation, and I have a chart for you.

Re:umm

[Reziac]

Pro dog trainer here with 40 years experience. I an adamantly against using food rewards, primarily because it inverts the master/underling relationship (it also actively prevents the trainer from learning to accurately read the dog's responses).

As it works in nature, the *underling* offers a treat to the =master= ("see? I'm useful! don't kill me!"), who then may OPT to graciously "share" part of it with the underling. (We even see this in the human workplace, where the underlings' labour brings in a profit, which the owner then graciously shares with them as wages.)

But if the master gives the dog a food reward, a dog that really wants to please becomes confused ("Huh?? I thought YOU were the master, now you're saying *I* am? WTF??") and often will refuse to even take the "reward" (unless starved for several days first, and yes, some food-based trainers DO keep their dogs half-starved, to ensure that the food-reward will be accepted). Conversely a dog that already has dominance issues gets that notion validated ("Hah, they're giving ME stuff, that PROVES I'm the boss!")

Young children and dogs think and respond very similarly, to the point that I always tell folks that their new puppy is like getting a permanent 5-year-old child (act accordingly and all will be copasetic). Draw your own conclusions about what bribing kids does to their notion of who's the REAL authority in their lives.

Re:umm

[KharmaWidow]

Amen. Did you know 100% of criminals were children once? Childhood leads to criminal activity! Where's my multi-million dollar grant?

Re:umm

[CheshireCatCO]

No.

That's 24 people who reported AT age 10 that they had candy regularly and later become criminals. Not eight criminals who report that they had candy way back when. The time of reporting matters. If you're claiming that the small number makes a difference, you need to explain why they would be more likely to lie as 10-year-olds. (This is possible, but it's not obviously true.)

Re:umm

[CheshireCatCO]

Read the article before you spend at least as much time to criticize it here, please.

This was a cohort study. The candy reporting was done AT THE TIME WHEN THEY WERE KIDS.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for making a clear criticism of the above posts. We can all use a little more of that in helping to raise the quality bar on the content of our comments (myself included).

Re:umm

[Xsydon]

I have lots of candy.... in my van.

Re:umm

[sbump]

I don't see the relevance of the number 17,000. The only question is whether the 35 is big enough.

Re:umm

[Goaway]

Ah yes, the cry of a man who has heard something he does not really understand, but knows he doesn't like.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I am hoping it will eventually make the twinkie defense valid.

Re:umm

[Shadow of Eternity]

Right, "natural and artifical ingredients/flavorings" is so helpful to me when I'm trying to pick food for someone with an allergy to MSG.

Re:umm

[phoenix321]

When you're in the Eastern part of Europe, then yes, socialism is pretty unpopular right now.

We in Western Europe have higher taxes, higher social security, higher welfare than ever before. State expenditures are four to fourty times higher than two decades ago, all while our national debts are higher than the moon. (though not as high as the US's)

And we have whole districts in each of our capitals, where neither police nor regular Joes will go without three SWAT teams backing them up. And we have thousands of cars torched, hundreds of stabbings every year by so-called "youths" in "socially disadvantaged suburbs". These incidents have doubled since the last two years. This is true for the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden.

It's not civil war yet, you could call it low-level, but sustained riots, or more appropriate "Intifada", regarding the origin and motive of these "youths". But it's not regular crime as in "personal gain through unjust means", but pretty outright directed at destroying other's property and health.

Re:umm

[CarpetShark]

No, I'm not. The Study's own abstract specifically discusses the "long-term effects of...Candy".

Re:umm

[MrHanky]

No, that's utter bullshit, and you're unable to back it up with sources. Basically, you're an infantile shithead who will believe whatever you want to believe, with no evidence, just to suit your idiotic ideological purposes. You're a moron.

Re:umm

[phoenix321]

Well, judging from the choice of your words, you're either quick to anger, actively denying or even part of the rioters.

I believe what I see, in the news, on YouTube or similar services and with my own set of eyes. Cars torched, thousands of protesters set out to protest against Neo-Nazis turning violent and smashing shop windows by the dozens, long hours after the last Nazi and the last cop left the scene.

If you don't believe it, that's fine. If you cannot muster enough willpower to query or question the mainstream and niche news sites from Indymedia to right wing blogs, well that's fine as well.

Insulting people based on their opinion is not. And since you do insult people because of their opinion, I think you're part of the problem.

Backup evidence in case you're not convinced and fuming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RJElADFXyQ (Berlin, Germany)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbKCGoUb4y0 (Malmö, Sweden)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQyXXsBBQ0 (London, UK - before the Israeli Embassy, not less)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IIN9_YdYxw
(Brussels, Belgium - where it is the worst, with quarters of total lawlessness and rioters really assaulting a police precint)

These videos present only a part of the real situation, both in good and in bad directions. Nonetheless, the events shown are current, real and serious. Even if no other events than the ones shown on these short films would have happened, it would've been enough rioting for all of us - but it's probably worse.

Re:umm

[MrHanky]

Evidence for "low-level, but sustained riots"? For claims that "social security, unemployment benefits, welfare (and of course taxes) MUST be that high to keep poor people from starving - and rioting"? For "whole districts in each of our capitals, where neither police nor regular Joes will go without three SWAT teams backing them up"? For the riots to be part of an "intifada"?

There's no such thing, not in those videos, nor anywhere else.

I'm not insulting you because of your opinion as such, but for your baseless claims. Your justification of your opinion.

Re:umm

[phoenix321]

In France, they call them like this:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_urbaine_sensible

And dude, you really DON'T want to be there, especially after sunset. It's pretty suspense to even be in the metro trains (the RER in Paris) coming from and to these areas after sunset.

You can claim there's no such thing as no-go areas in any of Western Europes capitals, but that doesn't make them vanish. Repeating, shouting or hammering on a rebuttal or denial doesn't make that point stronger, you could as well plug your ears and dismiss everything with "lalalala-i-cant-hear-you"

Here's another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLECtFT4aU

But then I thank God that I'm fully entitled to my own opinion and the right to write it down.

This is not widespread, but it's going on daily. On several occasions, these "youths" have publicly uttered Holocaust-like ambitions towards Western Europe and they filmed it themselves. This is an unpleasant fact, but it won't go away anytime soon.

Re:umm

[MrHanky]

That Wikipedia page does not say anything about any of those things, and the Youtube video, whose description links to a library of "racialist" texts, conveniently cuts off the program just before the Swedish comments on Fox News's sensationalist reporting begin -- and the context makes it clear that there will be comments (I understand Swedish, btw, so I have no problem getting better informed sources than Fox).

I've seen reports on Rosengård. It's not a nice place. But the police can walk around freely with no support from SWAT teams, and do so on a regular basis. There's also no suggestion, anywhere, that the problems of the area will go away if only we throw more money on unemployment benefits.

I repeat: Evidence for "low-level, but sustained riots"? For claims that "social security, unemployment benefits, welfare (and of course taxes) MUST be that high to keep poor people from starving - and rioting"? For "whole districts in each of our capitals (Malmo isn't the capital of Sweden, btw), where neither police nor regular Joes will go without three SWAT teams backing them up"? For the riots to be part of an "intifada"?

You have failed to provide, and you have tried twice.

Got a question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does "I'd kill for a Zagnut Bar" count?

scaremongering?

[mateomiguel]

This just in also: 100% of violent criminals drink dihydrogen monoxide at young age, inhale/exhale regularly, consume vast quantities of carbohydrates throughout childhood, adulthood.

Re:scaremongering?

[Canazza]

*dons Kevlar vest*
*rewards you with candy*

Re:scaremongering?

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah but so do 100% of people who are not violent criminals.

I think there may be a correlation between consumption of unhealthy food, and quality of parenting. Parents who do a good job tend not to encourage consumption of junk food. The same parents steer their kids away from becoming criminals.

Re:scaremongering?

[erroneus]

Makes me wonder. My 3 year old likes crackers and chips just fine but prefers steamed vegetables. (absolutely adores peas but then again, he tends to count them before he eats them) He doesn't care for candy of any kind, can't get him near ice cream and will barely eat doughnuts or sweet pastries. I don't force anything on him at all in terms of foods he likes and pretty much let him choose his favorites on his own. (Would I intervene if he was predisposed to sweets? yeah, probably.) So far, he likes "good food." It helps that his mother actually cooks at home and has always made his babyfood from scratch since he was introduced to foods in the first place. I guess it is what he is used to. But if I were to asked what his absolute favorite food was? It would have to be any kind of meat and bacon in particular. I know THAT can't be too healthy.

To be clear, I eat cookies and candies and ice cream at least once or twice a week if not more at times. I always offer these things to him nearly every time. He tries it but just doesn't like it. So far, I just think it's interesting. And while he is uncontrollably curious and shows strong indication of being rather analytical, he doesn't have any real behavior problems at all... there were no "terrible twos" though his assertiveness seems to be building more and more lately but still nothing compared to what I have seen in other, more typical children.

Yes, it had occurred to me that I do pay a lot of attention to him and his development and perhaps I do a bit of shaping without realizing it. But he's just happy and bubbly and you can't help but be attracted to a kid like that.

Re:scaremongering?

[pipingguy]

Brilliant observation, comrade MichaelSmith. Please stand in the waiting line of parents wishing to control offspring, we will get to you later.

PS If, in fact, you do not actually have children, but wish to expound on the pure idiocy of those who do, you can line up over there. Thank you for your patience.

Re:scaremongering?

[MichaelSmith]

Oddly enough my sons eight year old classmate was over for dinner today. He ate his dinner without being prompted, a vast improvement over my son. He is from a bigger and less well off family, and is expected to look after himself in situations where my son would be coddled and hand fed by myself and my wife.

So yeah its hard raising kids well. I don't claim to do the best job of it. Most of us control our offspring to some degree, getting it right at the start is an important trick. Knowing when to let go later on is important too.

My wife will be overseas for the next three weeks so I will be flying solo, so to speak. The last time we did this his maturity improved to no end.

Re:scaremongering?

[jonadab]

> But if I were to asked what his absolute favorite
> food was? It would have to be any kind of meat and
> bacon in particular. I know THAT can't be too healthy.

Actually, for young children, it's not as much of a problem as you might think -- provided they outgrow it at some point, preferably before reaching junior high age.

But yeah, you want to particularly encourage the vegetables, because those will *always* be healthy, no matter how old he gets.

Re:scaremongering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actaully - further study indicates 100% of those who are convicted of a violent crime before the age of 34 - Ate bread - so obviously we have ban bread.

Re:scaremongering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I did a scientific study the other day in my office. 100% of people who work are total pyschos, wackjobs, sychophants, losers or egotistical, gutter dwelling, bad smelling, ignoramuses.

Did I mention I got fired? I love science.

Re:scaremongering?

[Zerth]

You might want to get his tongue checked to see if he can detect sugar. You could try a taste-test between un/sugared water or perhaps bake some cookies without the sugar.

I don't remember how rare it is in people, but it is supposedly common in felines.

Re:scaremongering?

[jamesh]

My wife will be overseas for the next three weeks so I will be flying solo, so to speak. The last time we did this his maturity improved to no end.

You, on the return of your wife: "Now honey, you're going to hear a lot of crazy talk about our son working in a burlesque house"

Re:scaremongering?

[Anonymous Coward]

You hand-feed your 8 year old??! My daughter is 1 year 1 month old and she drinks her milk from a straw cup we set in front of her and eats everything herself off a tray. No way would I intervene when she can manage perfectly fine herself.

Re:scaremongering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?! The guy hasn't got the most basic grasp on what this study is saying. Which is unlike water, breathing and carbohydrates, the level of candy (ie. sweets) consumption can predict who is, and who is not more likely to be a criminal in adulthood.

I know you wanted first post dude, but could you have put just a fraction of a second's thought together before jerking your knee about?

Re:scaremongering?

[Kharny]

unfortunately, 100% of the people not convicted of crime also ate bread.

On the other hand, i've yet to see a single crime after people stopped the bad habit of breathing, so as long as we stop breathing, crime should go down immensely

Re:scaremongering?

[mdwh2]

I wonder if countries are now going to criminalise the sale and perhaps possession of candy.

I mean, given that such flimsy evidence (or even none at all) is sufficient grounds to restrict or criminalise images, video and computer games, as well as demonising certain kinds of music, surely the pro-censorship crowd should be demanding outright bans of candy! As flimsy as this evidence is, it's more than good enough for their standards.

But of course, they won't - just as we don't get laws banning religion when someone who happens to be religious commits a crime. It's only the unpopular things in society that get banned by these arguments.

Re:scaremongering?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the 0.001% of us who hate bread?

Re:scaremongering?

[hitnrunrambler]

I think there may be a correlation between consumption of unhealthy food, and quality of parenting. Parents who do a good job tend not to encourage consumption of junk food. The same parents steer their kids away from becoming criminals.

And it's equally likely that it can be viewed from a self control angle as well. People with a poor "internal parent" that does not restrain consumption of junk food are less likely to act with restraint in other areas.

The real interesting questions are:
How do some children of bad parents develop internal restraint? and How do some children of good parents develop poor self control?

Re:scaremongering?

[PitaBred]

I'm not intending to be rude, but it sounds like the problem is your wife's parenting, not yours. Kids tend to live up to their expectations. Even my 9 month old will listen to us and behave a certain extent. He stays away from cords (or looks at us as he goes for them, just being a pain), but he knows cords are something he should not play with.

Re:scaremongering?

[modecx]

Well, look on the bright side, he's one step ahead of those eight year old kids who get breastfed... Unless she secretly does that as well.

Re:scaremongering?

[MichaelSmith]

I'm not intending to be rude, but it sounds like the problem is your wife's parenting, not yours.

Well of course I would think that.

I just died a chocolately sweet death.

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article.

Absultely fucking useless.

No information on control. Awesome speculation on the five million ways they could interpret the data.

Why is this shit published?

Organic Food

[retech]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Re:Organic Food

[MichaelSmith]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Organic food is much better than inorganic food.

Re:Organic Food

[paulatz]

I love a bit of crystalline Oxygen di-hydrure in my cocktails

Re:Organic Food

[MichaelSmith]

I don't know that water is considered food. Its more of a chemical we consume, like oxygen. And maybe calcium. Thinking about that because I've got a broken bone at the moment.

Re:Organic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

And your point is ... ?

Re:Organic Food

[L4t3r4lu5]

Oblig

Re:Organic Food

[siloko]

Organic food is much better than inorganic food.

I guess so - but Candy?? In the BJPsy?? Over here we eat sweets! As far as I am concerned the whole premise is scuppered so the conclusions can go hang!

Re:Organic Food

[jopsen]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Not that I've read TFA, but do you have any evidence to back that statement ?

Re:Organic Food

[hrvatska]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Not sure why the organic food industry would have an interest in funding a study like this. Maybe you're assuming that organic!=junk food. This isn't the case, as there are plenty of companies producing organic junk food, such as chocolate, high fat ice cream and deep fried snacks like potato and corn chips. Consuming organic food doesn't guarantee a healthy diet, that's still up to the individual.

Re:Organic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but oxygen is not a chemical.

Re:Organic Food

[daem0n1x]

Yeah, we all know we can't trust any of these "scientific" studies because the organic food corporations are so much more gigantic, rich and powerful than the fast-food corporations.

It's like global warming. It's all a lie. The tree-hugging hippies have soooo much money and power that they bought all the scientists, the media and all the politicians, too. The poor oil corporations don't have a chance.

Re:Organic Food

[Mr. Slippery]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Do you think that junk food, including candy, can't be produced organically? Come into my kitchen...

"Organic" refers to how it's grown and produced, not how nutritious is is (other than that it is more likely to lack "negatively nutritious" contamination by pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, etcetera).

Anyway, there's nothing new about associating crime with poor nutrition (the article is a bit pop science sensationalistic but is a good summary, see here and here and here for some of the studies):

Stephen Schoenthaler, a criminal-justice professor at California State University in Stanislaus, has been researching the relationship between food and behaviour for more than 20 years He has proven that reducing the sugar and fat intake in our daily diets leads to higher IQs and better grades in school. When Schoenthaler supervised a change in meals served at 803 schools in low-income neighbourhoods in New York City, the number of students passing final exams rose from 11 percent below the national average to five percent above. He is best known for his work in youth detention centers. One of his studies showed that the number of violations of house rules fell by 37 percent when vending machines were removed and canned food in the cafeteria was replaced by fresh alternatives. He summarizes his findings this way: "Having a bad diet right now is a better predictor of future violence than past violent behaviour."

Recent research showed similar conclusions. Bernard Gesch, physiologist at the University of Oxford, decided to test the anecdotal clues in the most thorough study so far in this field. In a prison for men between the ages of 18 and 21 in England's Buckinghamshire, 231 volunteers were divided into two groups: One was given nutrition supplements along with their meals that contained our approximate daily needs for vitamins, minerals and fatty acids; the other group got placebos. Neither the prisoners, nor the guards, nor the researchers at the prison knew who took fake supplements and who got the real thing.

The researchers then tallied the number of times the participants violated prison rules, and compared it to the same data that had been collected in the months leading up to the nutrition study. The prisoners given supplements for four consecutive months committed an average of 26 percent fewer violations compared to the preceding period. Those given placebos showed no marked change in behaviour. For serious breaches of conduct, particularly the use of violence, the number of violations decreased 37 percent for the men given nutrition supplements, while the placebo group showed no change.

Re:Organic Food

[Svartalf]

Food's nothing more than a specific set of chemicals we consume.

Re:Organic Food

[Svartalf]

"Organic" refers to how it's grown and produced, not how nutritious is is (other than that it is more likely to lack "negatively nutritious" contamination by pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, etcetera).

Indeed. However, you might want to note that even though the aforementioned is true, HFCS isn't in the stuff labeled "Organic" as it doesn't meet the criteria for the same. HFCS is actually nutritionally worse than Sucrose is and we won't get into things like Aspartame. Going with "organic" is likely to be ever so slightly better than the other stuff- it doesn't mean you're going to get nutritious food, but it will assure you that you're mostly not taking in stuff that's actually of more concern than just being not-nutritious.

Re:Organic Food

[AlphaBit]

Umm, who's talking about tree hugging hippies? The green movement is corporate, the organic movement has been for some time. They do have soooo much money, and they have a scary amount of psychological power over western culture. The mega-corporations managed to stall long enough to bring their own products to market, then began a standard, guilt based campaign saying that it was time to rise above our consumerist past and that they are at the forefront of the technology needed to make it happen. The organic food corporation IS McDonalds. The alternative-fuel corporation IS the oil corporation.

Re:Organic Food

[Hognoxious]

So what is it?

Re:Organic Food

[rleibman]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Organic food is much better than inorganic food.

Except for salt

Re:Organic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about getting cause and effect the wrong way round.

Did it even occur to these 'experts' that they might have them the wrong way round? Of course not. They aren't interested in truth, only dogma.

Re:Organic Food

[MichaelSmith]

Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?

Organic food is much better than inorganic food.

Except for salt

Yeah and some animals (birds?) eat rocks to help grind up food.

Re:Organic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all the corn farmers (ethanol) bought all the politicians, who realized that they could appeal to a growing movement. Then all the big companies found out that they could shame other companies by offering more environmentally friendly products. In reality, the environmentalists do good by eliminating harmful waste, but they should not have legislation to support this, as the market will drive legitimate innovation within this field.

Re:Organic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you seriously think "organic" farming is not performed by the large agriculture conglomerates?

Sweeties!

[Anonymous Coward]

A British study would be looking at the effect of *sweets* rather than *candy*.

Re:Sweeties!

[jonadab]

> A British study would be looking at the
> effect of *sweets* rather than *candy*.

What's the difference? I always thought they were the same thing.

Re:Sweeties!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference? I always thought they were the same thing.

Candy makes you act like a cowboy, sweets just give you a stiff upper lip.

Correlation?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what kind of parents give their kids candy every day?

Re:Correlation?

[cayenne8]

"So what kind of parents give their kids candy every day?"

What kind of parents give there kids fast food every day?

Answer: Unfortunately in the US, WAY too many of them.

Re:Correlation?

[nomadic]

What kind of parents give there kids fast food every day?

It's cheap, fast, and filling; if you're working 2 jobs in the inner city, then maybe that lovingly prepared steamed vegetable platter might be hard to do.

...waits for...

[Anonymous Coward]

correlationisnotcausation tag to appear.

Re:...waits for...

[PinkyDead]

Not just once either.

what's with / .

[xfea]

This 'news' is way old.....

NHS Explains

[JRiddell]

For an excellent overview of this story I recommend this critique of the paper from the English NHS's excellent Behind the Headlines service. Unlike a newspaper it will tell you who did the study, how it was funded, where the data came from and whether the results are worth anything. In this case the data was severaly limited and had put people into either "eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.It also doesn't report the absolute number of children who went on to become adult offenders. In conclusion

"Overall, this study on its own does not provide strong enough evidence to guide childhood dietary advice, although common sense says that eating too many sweets is probably not good for children. Before the newspapersâ(TM) explanation for a link can be believed there must be studies specifically designed to investigate the issue from the outset."

Re:NHS Explains

[franoreilly]

This paper looks suspiciously like data-mining to find an hypothesis. It's based on a cohort study that was not specifically designed for finding a correlation of this type. For example, it did not find out what the family income was.

An alternative hypothesis might therefore be that the amount of sweets you eat at age 10 is a predictor of what socio-economic group you're in then.

Re:NHS Explains

[TheTurtlesMoves]

..."eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.

This is often done to get a significant test result. A Chi2 correlation test will give different results depending on the "bin" sizes.

So you start with fine grained bins and then start pooling until you get a significant test. If you still don't get a significant result, try other tests that can be used. This of course creates massive problems for the validly of any "significant" result.

Re:NHS Explains

[Anonymous Coward]

That was pretty scathing.

What surprises me is that social strata is seldom considered - to me it sounds more reasonable to link criminal behaviour with social background.

Re:NHS Explains

[sdiz]

This paper looks suspiciously like data-mining to find an hypothesis. It's based on a cohort study that was not specifically designed for finding a correlation of this type.....

Read the NHS article: "....As it is designed prospectively, it also avoids the chance of reverse causation, i.e. the possibility that in some way violent offending might determine dietary habit. ..."

Re:NHS Explains

[Dogbertius]

Hmmm, false dichotomy, good times. Since "candy" is street slang for smack in some parts, it really doesn't surprise me that being fed it since age 5 leads to psychotic behavior.

Re:NHS Explains

[AHuxley]

Like the top people in Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, AIG, WaMu or Madoff :)

Re:NHS Explains

[smaddox]

"Overall, 69% of respondents who were violent by the age of 34 years reported that they ate sweets nearly every day during childhood. Sweets were eaten this regularly by 42% of those who were non-violent."

This is an inconclusive result if I've ever seen one.

candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[SkunkPussy]

I very much doubt any British study would have looked at candy consumption as that's not a word in common usage over here.

Re:candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[will_die]

So what is the term used? Sweets?

Re:candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[imakemusic]

Yes.

Re:candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[kauttapiste]

But it can be a girl's name. "Having Candy daily at age 10..." Now if they had Candy every day at age 30! Crime rates would plummet! Everyone would be all smile!

Re:candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[nurb432]

That's too bad. Sounds like a new market for Hersheys...

Re:candy? in britain? soon it'll be freedom fries

[imakemusic]

Colonel Mustard Linked to Violence in Library

The other way to see it

[fluch]

Criminals which have been eating candies when they were 10 are dump at the age of 34. The criminals which did not eat candies at the age of 10 are less likely to be caught.

And if I see again this: "Thirty-five of those children went on to report at age 34 that they'd been convicted of a violent crime, the researchers found." .... they make a statistical statement about a sample of 35! Gosh! The study is not worth even a single penny (nor a candy)!

Re:The other way to see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. And how on earth do you "correct for parenting style"? Out of a sample of 35? Jeez.....

Re:The other way to see it

[richmaine]

Exactly. And how on earth do you "correct for parenting style"? Out of a sample of 35? Jeez.....

Particularly since giving kids candy every day *IS* an element of parenting style.

really?

[GAB_cyclist]

The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence So bad parenting is the cause of criminal behaviour? Who would have thought...

I don't like the result

[Anonymous Coward]

And correlation is never causation when I don't like the result.

Conversely correlation is always causation when I like the result.

Re:I don't like the result

[telomerewhythere]

I'd like to see a study of correlationisnotcausation tags in /. articles, especially for filesharing/torrents and for other behaviors we like, but are said to be good/bad for us.

even on this discussion there are at least 4 statements I read along the lines 'I don't think this study can be true, because I feel *.'

It is the parents...

[MikeRT]

Parents who regularly give their kids candy usually are the sort of parents who aren't disciplining their kids. Candy is often used by such people as a replacement for parental authority in controlling their kids' behavior.

Re:It is the parents...

[Kreeben]

You are joking of course :) Then again, if you are not, I would love to see how you substantiate the two claims you make.

Re:It is the parents...

[jonadab]

> Candy is often used by such people as a replacement for
> parental authority in controlling their kids' behavior.

Actually, it can be even worse than that.

There are parents out there who make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to control their kids' behavior or teach them *anything*, at all, ever. They let them eat quite literally whatever they want, which generally does not result in anything you could describe as a healthy diet. And they let them *do* whatever they want, which doesn't necessarily result in the most upright law-abiding citizens possible.

Re:It is the parents...

[LordAndrewSama]

He might be joking, but the study was conducted here in Britain, and the parents that i've met here are terrible. nursery as a way of getting rid of the child for a while, 'playfarms' so that the children can leave the parents alone to have a smoke, people pushing the pram and fucking swearing every second fucking word, going for a bath and leaving a 3 yr old to his own devices for the afternoon, I saw a child half out of a second floor window on my road, and I didn't see a parent pick him up and take him to safety, oh no, I heard a shout of "get the fuck away from there".

I've only been in england since january, too.

These are all just personal observations, btw, not flaming, but the people i've seen need to take the responsibility of having children more seriously.

Re:It is the parents...

[SleazyRidr]

What do you mean you'd love to see him substantiate the claims he makes? Instead of 'Do this or I'll spank you', it becomes 'Do this and I'll give you candy.' Of course it's nice to be "positive" in your parenting, but it leads to an attitude like 'I did the right thing, now give me candy', rather than 'I did the right thing because it's the right thing to do.' Ever hear people around hear complaining about the "entitlement culture"? This is where it starts.

Re:It is the parents...

[Reziac]

In my observation, the kids whose parents make NO attempt to control their kids' behaviour wind up in better shape than those kids whose parents attempt to BRIBE their kids' behaviour.

The do-nothing parent at least doesn't actively warp the kid. The kid may not learn anything from his parents, but he will learn when other people whack him upside the head for being a mannerless little prick. He may even develop urges to more-mature behaviour on his own (to gain respect from peers, teachers, or whoever), thus may eventually grow up despite his parents' neglect.

But the ones that bribe their kids are actively destroying the parent/child relationship, and worse, they usually defend their kid against anyone else's attempts to civilize him. The kid learns to be a manipulative brat even if he has better urges, because in the world of bribes, manipulation is the only thing that works. And the typical bribing-parent won't allow anyone else to correct their kid's behaviour, either, so the kid has no chance to learn from other adults.

Correlation does not imply causality

[Anonymous Coward]

When will people finally learn? Studies like that are just stupid. Absolutely nothing was shown here.

Simple explanation (just an example of cause):
Less educated families tend to give their children more sweets. Lack of education is responsible for criminal activities (causality assumed for this example). In such a scenario there would of cause be a correlation between sweets and crime but obviously no causality.

Re:Correlation does not imply causality

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Absolutely nothing was shown here. ...except the correlation you suggest may be caused by lack of education. Or maybe it's not, and candy really does cause violence.

Perhaps this study showed that there is a need for further study? Knowing that there is a correlation is the first step to determining causation.

Re:Correlation does not imply causality

[trb]

Absolutely nothing was shown here. ...except the correlation you suggest may be caused by lack of education. Or maybe it's not, and candy really does cause violence.

Or maybe violence causes candy.

My take on the thing:

[Hurricane78]

If you eat candy as a replacement for love, you are more likely to be violent because of a lack of love.

Just a theory. And one way of many. But I've seen it too often, that a addiction, being itself a replacement for something else you need, does mean that when you don't get it, you become desperate and do things that you normally would not do. Not specifically violence. More like when you destroy everything around you because you can't stand the situation. (Similar to rage.)

We should be clear about those two things:
1. Candy is a likely candidate for addictions.
2. Addictions always are a replacement for a lack of something else.
So find that something else, and help the person get that stuff so much, that they forget the addiction because they don't need it anymore.

For children, this usually is the lack of good parents.
(I said for a long time, that social and parenting skills must be an essential skill you learn in a class in school! [Which for the second generation will mean that they also learn it from their now capable parents at home.])

Re:My take on the thing:

[AnotherUsername]

If you eat candy as a replacement for love

Who would eat candy as a replacement for love? That's what the television is for!

Re:My take on the thing:

[bpsbr_ernie]

Nothing replaces chocolate..

Re:My take on the thing:

[drinkypoo]

1. Candy is a likely candidate for addictions.

Candy is addictive. It's not candy though, it's sugar and it only matters a little bit where it comes from. Sucrose vs. Fructose is basically irrelevant because wonder bread vs. sucrose is not really a competition. To your body, they're the same thing. That's one reason this study is stupid. You could never allow your child to eat a candy bar, but serve them cap'n crunch for breakfast every day and you're just begging for juvenile diabetes.

Your body produces insulin for the process of breaking down carbohydrates. The more processed they are, the faster it breaks them down, the faster your pancreas has to produce insulin, and the harder it has to work. But it's glucose that makes you feel full, and your brain becomes more resistant to it over time. The end result is that you have to eat more and more carbs to feel full. This mechanism was probably "intended" (i.e., "has the result of") to make people pack on food during the plentiful season, so that they could live on their stored fat reserves in the winter when food was scarce. This is no longer necessary because food is plentiful year-round, but since we preserve diabetics and people who overeat through modern medical care, it will take a long time for these properties to be bred out of humanity. Also, as long as portions of the human race still live that way, the genes will be preserved.

Re:My take on the thing:

[Anonymous Coward]

So you think Hitler lacked love, overdosed on candy at 10 or both?

Re:My take on the thing:

[Hurricane78]

I'm doing it since I am 13. So there you go... :/

Class?

[Peregr1n]

I don't know how relevant this theory would be to America (I know class boundaries are not as evident as in the UK), but here the most obvious cause of this evidence would be class lifestyles. Poor, lower class, under-educated children are more susceptible to criminal influences; while well-educated middle class parents are more likely to obsess over their children's diets. As goes the popular tag, correlation is not causation. You could equally theorise that wearing trainers cause crime, as children who wear Nike trainers are more likely to offend than children who wear Hush Puppies shoes.

Re:Class?

[Hognoxious]

I don't know how relevant this theory would be to America (I know class boundaries are not as evident as in the UK)

You know, do you?

just like video games...

[Anonymous Coward]

anything can be shown as a link to violence...

breathing, eating, reading the newspaper, watching tv...

Full text behind paywall??

[Anonymous Coward]

I went here and I could see the text without issues...

Childhood factors that influence the expression of violence in adulthood are numerous and include economic, ecological and individual factors (such as personality traits).1 Diet has been causally associated with population mortality rates, neurocognitive deficits, disruptive behaviour, antisocial and aggressive behaviour, and offending behaviour in a prison population.2â"5 Furthermore, decision biases, such that rewards are subjectively overweighted and punishment underweighted, are associated with delinquency.6 Confectionery (sweets/chocolates), often used as a quick reward for children, has also received attention,3,7 although studies have mostly focused on the short-term effects of diet on behaviour: the long-term effects have yet to be determined. The objective of our study was to extend what is currently known about childhood risk factors for violence by also considering the role of confectionery. We hypothesise that excessive confectionery consumption increases the likelihood of violence in adulthood.

Method

Our analysis included data on the births and families of babies (respondents, hereafter) born in the UK in one particular week (n = 17 415) derived from the British Cohort Study which began in 1970. Information was requested on all babies born (alive or dead) after the 24th week of gestation from 00:01 on Sunday 5th April to 24:00 on Saturday 11th April 1970. It is estimated that not more than 5% and not less than 2% of all births were missed. Since 1970 there have been seven data collections designed to monitor respondentsâ(TM) health, education, social and economic circumstances. These additional waves took place when respondents were aged 5, 10, 16, 26, 30, 34 and 42 years. We used data from the age 10 wave when respondents were asked how frequently they consumed confectionery, and the age 34 wave, when self-report violent offending data and additional information on socioeconomic status were collected. Additional data were taken from the age 5 wave that characterised respondentsâ(TM) early development, including parenting style. Respondents were coded positive for perpetration of violence (violence, hereafter) if the most recent offence, between the age 30 and age 34 surveys, for which they were found guilty involved violence. Violence data were collected using a reliable self-report computer-assisted interview methodology.8 Confectionery consumption was reduced to a binary variable (every day = 1, less often or never = 0) owing to small numbers in the violence variable. To check the robustness of estimates we regressed confectionery consumption onto violence and then incrementally added control variables. With no substantial change in either the sign or significance of the effect of eating confectionery, we then sought the most parsimonious model by removing control variables that yielded no significant association. Numerous control variables were entered into initial models, including information on: the childâ(TM)s behaviour at home at age 5 years and maternal circumstances based on the Rutter A Scale of behavioural deviance (completed by a parent, usually the mother, and designed to measure behaviour-adjustment problems) and the Malaise Inventory (a 24-item self-completion scale designed to assess psychiatric morbidity);9 aggression and impulsivity at age 10 years, assessed by the childâ(TM)s class teacher; mental ability at age 5 years, derived from figure drawing and vocabulary tests, reduced to a single mental ability score using a procedure described by Batty10 and validated against a health visitorâ(TM)s subjective assessment of ability. Forty-three questions were used to assess parental attitudes in the age 5 wave and iterated principal factor analysis with an oblique rotation method11 (Kaiserâ"Meyerâ"Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.88) yielded three factors: an authoritarian attitude to parent

Coming soon to a courtroom near you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack Thompson takes on Willy Wonka!
Also available on Pay-Per-View.

Revised Headline

[JayGuerette]

Children of parents who encourage poor & impulsive choices grow up to make poor & impulsive choices.

new generation

[palmerj3]

If that is true, which I firmly believe it is since I read it on the Internet, then the Baby Boomers may be succeeded by the Baby Killers..

Try the expt. yourself

[petes_PoV]

With halloween coming up, just try refusing to give sweets (american translation: candy) to the little beggars that come calling. See if those who don't get given sweets are more or less violent than those who do.

Statistically demonstrable != sensible

Diet? Really?

[Benjo]

Isn't it very possible the a persons diet when they're 10 is likely to be an indicator of their parents conscientiousness. If you accept that to be true then all this study really shows is that people with conscientious parents are less likely to be violent criminals. And I think most people would regard that as a no brainer....

DAMN THOSE SOCIALISTS

[MosesJones]

Hang on a second, are you seriously expecting Slashdots mainly american audience to read something by the socalist NHS? Quite clearly the reason for the NHS denying this study is that they WANT people to get ill to continue their socialist principles.

Next time you hear people decry the "socialist" NHS think on this report and ask how in the US medical system is focusing on prevention.

Re:DAMN THOSE SOCIALISTS

[AHuxley]

The NHS knows candy sells and keeps UK candy workers running production lines 24/7.
The only "prevention" the "socialist" UK system as a whole is interested in is loss of tax income and loss of jobs.
More UK workers making cheap mind dumbing candy, more UK workers paying tax, more tax and the NHS budget grows.
A "safe" candy scare is not good. The cost of looking after a few offenders in their 20-40's vs a shake up to real taxes?
Unless you have flipper babies again, an MP tests for plastic/heavy metals, the NHS will side with UK tax revenue stream ie candy is safe.

Easy. Ban Candy...

[syousef]

If Candy's violent, ban the bitch. Hell put her in jail if you have to. Just leave my sweets alone you motherfuckers.

They'll be screaming bloody murder...

[hipp5]

Annnnd how long until this story has been grossly misinterpreted by the media? Pretty soon we're going to hear, "candy is THE CAUSE of violence. Ban it! Ban it!"

Re:They'll be screaming bloody murder...

[Drakkenmensch]

Think of the children! Won't somebody pleeeeeease think of the CHILDREN!!!

We're coming for you, Iran!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-preparing-bomb-iran/story?id=8765343

Soon Amadenijad and Khomeni will be sucking each others' flaccid, useless cocks in hell.

Whoa Whoa Whoa

[realsilly]

How old is this researcher? Come on. It's not the drug, it's the pusher. If you tell a child a carrot is candy, they you reward him with a carrot when the child behaves, then you've just made vegetables the new cause for violent behavior. I call shennigans on this study.

American Dental Association

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like the ADA is taking a new strategy to stem candy consumption. What will they think up for dental floss usage?

Another bah study.

[Veretax]

You could just as easily say that those who commit acts of violence like candy, but the reverse does not necessarily true. I mean C'mon KIDS love candy.

Research tip (Not for those without tenure)

[turing_m]

If anything can be said of this study is that you need to verify it with the prison system.

If the 65% number doesn't hold up, investigate the correlation between crime and a diet high in fried chicken and watermelon.

Re:Research tip (Not for those without tenure)

[Jarjarthejedi]

This is informative rather than funny? Okay then...we have some...interesting...editors today...

Re:Research tip (Not for those without tenure)

[Mister Whirly]

Hey turing, you left your sheet and hood in the Cracker Barrel parking lot again. Careful, it may get dirty if you keep leaving it laying around places! And we all know how you love WHITE sheets.

Re:It is the parents... or is it the dentists?

[petes_PoV]

too many sweets leads to tooth decay - which would require more visits to the dentist. Maybe it's this which leads to increased levels of violence?

It seems to me there are too many uncontrolled (and probably even more unknown) variables for any meaningful conclusions to come from this. The biggest thing that's missing from all these social science studies is any sort of objective or quanitfiable units of measurement. Until they can all agree on HOW violent, in standardised units, there's nothing worth discussing here.

Of course candy=crime

[Anonymous Coward]

I want candy, bubble gum, and taffy
Skip to the sweet shop with my sweetheart Sandy
Got my pennies saved so I'm her sugar daddy
I'm her Hume Cronyn and she's my Jessica Tandy, I want candy!

put it in a pile, split it with my bitty 50/50 down the line
kinda like close encounters of the cavity kind
im talkin liquorice kisses, talkin chocodile smiles

I want candy, i got a sugar tooth
put on your shin gaurds, Sandy, 'cause i wanna knock boots
lick my peppermint stick til' the lollipop droops
gumdrop that dont stop til' its licked knot loose

(ladies)
candy... candy...

i need candy bubble gum, and taffy
get in my way punk, you're gonna get ya ass beat, nasty
Do it till your dad sees, embarass your whole family
Just 'cause you came between a kid and his candy
I need candy, any kind'll do
Don't care if it's nutritious or "FDA approved"
It's gonna make me spaz like bobcats on booze
A hyperactive juice that only I can produce

And fuel a giant drill, bore straight into Hell
Releasing ancient demons from their sleep forever spell
So they can walk upon the earth, and get resituated
And Hock the diet pills that MC Pee Pants has created

I need candy, want some candy, eat candy til' I'm dead
I'll kill you for some candy, give me candy, candy head!
Where you keepin' all the candy?!
Who made you candy king?!
If you dont give me some candy, I will make the ladies sing!

(ladies)
Candy, in tha morning, candy on the way to school
Candy, at school, at lunch in the afternoon
Candy, in school, on your way home from school
Candy, at diner,at dinner, in bed!

Mess up the mix, mix up the mess
Come on down yo, here's the address
At 6-1-2 Wharf Avenue,

Right next to, gentlemen's club.

How about...

[benjfowler]

"Bad and Clueless Parenting Linked to Violence"?

The big problem with Anglo-Celtic society, is that we always love to yammer on about our rights and inalienable right to individual freedom, but never our responsibilities to each other.

Libertoons who try to defend the indefensible in the name of "freedom" and "individual liberty" annoy the hell out of me. They're every bit as bad as Marxists, religious crazies and animal rights extremists.

Re:How about...

[thisnamestoolong]

Libertoons who try to defend the indefensible in the name of "freedom" and "individual liberty" annoy the hell out of me. They're every bit as bad as Marxists, religious crazies and animal rights extremists.

I am a bit confused by this comment -- what are you calling indefensible -- giving children candy? I agree, bad parenting is bad news, but how are we going to go about solving that? A child will be much better off in the end with jack-off, irresponsible parents than if you rip them out of the home and into foster care. We need to educate people to make the right choices. And yes, I will defend the rights of parents to give their children candy, just because the last thing we need is more government intervention into our lives, not because I agree with the behavior but because government intervention into our personal lives almost always makes things worse. We need to save that sort of thing for the big issues, such as abuse and neglect.

Re:How about...

[Hognoxious]

A child will be much better off in the end with jack-off, irresponsible parents than if you rip them out of the home and into foster care.

What, like this one?

How much worse could it have been?

Re:How about...

[thisnamestoolong]

Are you dense? Did you even read what I wrote? I specifically covered serious abuse and neglect as situations in which the government needs to step in. Both of the incidents you mentioned SHOULD have been taken care of by the systems currently in place, and the tragedy was caused by a string of failures by individuals. Tweaking the system to make it work more efficiently and to more accurately diagnose abuse and neglect = good. Expanding the breadth of influence the gov't has over what decisions you can and cannot make in raising your child = bad. Can you see the difference?

Finally, not video games

[alanmusician]

As bad as this study is, I'm definitely saving it for the next "Video Games Linked to Violence" debate.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is something of interest I found about this study on MedScape.com http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/709939
  "Other significant relations between control variables and violence included the child's sex (male) and the parents' attitude toward parenting. Access to motorized transport at 34 years was found to protect against adult violence, whereas living in a rural area at 34 years increased the risk for violence."

So from this we can infer
Candy = Bad,
Candy + Vehicle = so so,
Candy + Living on a farm = Very bad,
Candy + Living on a farm - Vehicle = Devil spawn

I find these results even more interesting, famers are more violent than city folk especially if they have bad teeth (like Candy). Also Pedestrians are more violent than drivers, imagine road rage if there were no cars!?

Ultimately we can see that Hollywood has been telling us the truth all along, if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and you walk down an abandoned road to and find a farm, if the farmer smiles at you with a decaying smile and offer to let you stay in the barn.... Don't!

You know, I just love statistics, they are like a self fulfilling job cause the one thing statistics can always be counted on to prove is that further study is needed to better understand the current study's results.

Daily candy

[D-R0C]

Daily candy is just wrong. It's bad parenting and irresponsible. Regardless of whether it causes criminal behaviour later in life you are doing your children a grave disservice by allowing or encouraging them to eat candy so frequently. Proper nutrition should be taught in schools with an unbiased uncorporate corriculum.

Re:Daily candy

[Belial6]

Good luck on that. Given that: Our government's (US) official recommended diet is something like 80% sugar. The medical and insurance industries that are considered 'experts' by the population (including those that would make school corriculum) us BMI as gosple. The vast majority of the population think that Calories Eaten - Calories Burned is exactly how you adjust diet for healthy eating. I don't see how you could ever hope to get schools to teach proper nutrition. Of course, they try, and in trying, they are just taking us one step closer to a full orphanage society. Heck, the new push is to get kids to just eat food supplied by the school system. OK, to be fair, they are not trying to take away dinner yet, but schools do push to get as many kids eating breakfast and lunches supplied by the schools.

BAD statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the numbers, they're using it in terms of percents. If you actually use real numbers (TM) here's how it compares:
35 out of 17,415 reported commiting a violent crime. Of these 35, 24 reported being given candy daily.
So of the 17,380 who DIDN'T commit a violent crime, 7,300 reported being given candy daily.
Those percents sure sound scary, so let me express it in another percent: If you give your kid candy daily, he has a 0.3% chance of commiting a violent crime. If you don't he has a 0.1% chance of commiting a violent crime. When taking the totals of violent vs nonviolent adults, you have a 0.2% chance of being a violent offender.

The violent offenders is likely too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about. But given that this was a 40 year study, they had to publish SOMETHING right?!

Vague

[Convector]

"The question... is vague. It doesn't say what KIND of candy or... or whether anyone is watching."

well

[nomadic]

Makes sense. I reward my children with candy after they mug people.

Synthetic additives, not sugar (link: Lancet)

[Brian Stretch]

Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial

Even that study could have been done better but it was enough to get the point across. Petrochemical food additives such as artificial coloring (FD&C anything), flavoring and preservatives (BHA, BHT, some others) are inherently toxic and immune response to them varies wildly between individuals. With some people you'll never notice a difference. With others, the tiniest bit of, say, red dye will make them hyper, violent, you name it. Synthetics are a major reason why ADHD has become epidemic.

For me, synthetics were making me more impulsive and a bit mean. Nothing dramatic but switching to a clean diet made a noticeable difference in my psychology and I'm in better shape now too.

Keeping synthetics out of your diet can be difficult. It helps if there's a nearby Whole Foods Market or similar store that bans all synthetics. There is NO REASON for synthetics in food other than that they save food processors from having to buy real ingredients.

Why haven't you heard more about this? Who's going to pay for the research? It won't lead to a prescription drug, surgery, or any other medical intervention. It'd wipe out most of the market for ADHD meds (not all, some people have congenital neurochemical imbalances). It would require people to learn how to cook again.

Much more info at the Feingold Association research page.

Rod & Todd say...

[geekmansworld]

"Don't hog it all, smelly-head!"

"Go to hell, zitface!"

WTFmobilecopter

[ILuvRamen]

How stupid are these "scientists?" Bad parenting = a bad diet AND future criminal. Those are two parallel effects of the same known and totally obvious cause and have nothing to do with each other.
Btw if you combine those two stats, you'll notice that there's only like a 30% increase in daily candy consumption between the criminals and non-criminals. That's awfully small! Also, combine the stats further and notice that around 50% of all british children apparently ate candy daily. Or at least I think that's what the result is given those two stats they gave.

Candy - The Drug Addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Snorting Pixy Stix just keeps you wanting more until you go mad!

Heh... Brave Soul...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a living in statistics, namely as a quant.

I'd not be owning up to being a quant (though I concur that the study's dodgy at best... ;-) ) considering that at least a good portion of your profession's handiwork was part of what brought about the current global financial malaise...

marshmallow effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Also - check out the marshmallow effect

Parents are at fault of course

[ClosedSource]

I'm always suspicious of statistical studies that reinforce cultural beliefs.

Was the study designed as part of a series of studies to understand how people ended up in prison or designed to show that one way or another, it's the parents' fault?

Candy linked to violence in study

[heathen_penguin]

It was not Candy in the study. It was Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room.

More misplaced priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should focus on the criminals that go around saying, "Little girl, would you like some candy?" rather than those who eat candy. Unless, of course, your little girl's name is Candy...

Sugar cereals

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet how many parents think feeding their children sugar cereals for breakfast isn't feeding them candy for breakfast?

Oh, but it's vitamin fortified! And it has a little bran fiber...

It's basically candy if the first ingredient on the label is sugar (or dextrose/sucrose/fructose/etc.).

New study

[Reziac]

I made a similar study, using myself as the test population. I discovered that when I don't get my daily dose of chocolate, I become violent, and that 100% of those studied had this response!

Do they intentionally mislead the public?

[ArmyOfAardvarks]

When study results like this one are published, do you think that they're intentionally misleading the public or that they're simply THAT ignorant of cause and effect relationships. Bad parents let their children eat lots of candy. Bad parents raise children that commit crimes. Bad Parenting = the cause Candy = Effect #1 Crime = Effect #2 Candy is not a cause, it's an effect.

contradict much?

[uwnav]

okay I don't get it. From the first sentence and much of the discussion here: lots of candy = more violence.
Then it says: "Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence."

so you can't give it to them all the time.. because they become violent, and you can't give it to them as reward because that would lead to violence.

why don't they add "Studies also show restricting access to candy entirely creates a sense of resentment which would leads to violence"

Why they have to do this study over and over?

[Wege]

This fact that too much candy and sweet foodstuff make children too impulsive is known for a quite a long time already. Sad though, that although we know that , and study after study proves that again, still children are stuffed with candy by both parents and schools.

Candy is a gateway drug

[gogebic]

Sonny: Man this yoo-hoo is good. You know what else is good? Smoking dope. I ain't gonna rat you out. You know. Puff a cheeba, go by the seesaw, smoke a jay, you know what I'm talking about. Kid 1: I have a bellybutton. Sonny: You have a bellybutton, we all have belly buttons. And we all love yoo-hoo. Especially yoo-hoo with a little rum. Kid 2: What's rum? Sonny: You don't know what rum is? Kid 2: Rumplestiltskin? Sonny: Rumplestiltskin....Rumplestiltskin was a good man. You're good kids. Stay clean, stay focused, stay strong. Have fun with your friends, Frankenstein. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Daddy_%28film%29)

Dang...

[Tetsujin]

Looks like I'll have to get rid of the candy dish I keep in the study...

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