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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."
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.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
A British study would be looking at the effect of *sweets* rather than *candy*.
Surely a study like this is not funded by the organic food industry?
Organic food is much better than inorganic food.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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."
I very much doubt any British study would have looked at candy consumption as that's not a word in common usage over here.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
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?
Fleur de Sel
No, the act of causing some effect is not at all related to the act of becoming a small town in minnesota.
"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.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
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...
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.
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.
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.])
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
correllation is not causation? agggh!
Hey, calm down Matt4077. Stop yelling at the nice slashdotters and I will give you a piece of candy.
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
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.
Children of parents who encourage poor & impulsive choices grow up to make poor & impulsive choices.
Statistically demonstrable != sensible
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
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....
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"
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.
My blog
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"But this one goes to 11!"
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.
It was not Candy in the study. It was Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room.
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.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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.