Candy does more than just rot teeth
Photo by Lauren Haley
October 30, 2009 • written by Jessica Ferrell
Filed under News
Halloween! Trick or treat! Give me something good to eat!
With Halloween just around the corner, kids (and maybe adults) will be satisfying their sweet tooth with candy galore. However, a recent study shows that children who eat candy daily are linked to violent adulthoods.
This study was published in The British Journal of Psychiatry in the October issue. Cardiff University in Wales conducted research based on data from 17,415 children who were born in the United Kingdom in a single week during April 1970. The data showed that 35 of those children reported that they had been convicted of a type of violent crime by age 34. Of those 35, around 24 people ate candy daily at age 10. This was then compared to the 42% who said that they had never been convicted of a crime. Extensive research was also conducted regarding the economic backgrounds of the children and whether they affected the study.
Theories about the results of this study state that some children might not have learned to delay gratification.
“Giving children sweets and chocolate regularly may [prevent them from] learning how to wait to obtain something they want,” leader of the study Dr. Simon Moore said, “Not being able to defer gratification may push them towards more impulsive behavior, which is associated with delinquency.”
Another theory stated that the adults who were convicted of crimes might have been difficult children. As a way to get them to behave properly, they might have been given candy. Since little research has been done concerning this theory, it has left many psychologists and dieticians skeptical.
“If there is any real link, my instinct is that the daily candy may be indicative of certain lifestyle factors that the researchers did not capture,” Melinda Johnson, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said. “For example, I do not see that the researchers were able to control for violence in the home. Perhaps children who end up violent as adults also tend to grow up in violent homes, and perhaps candy is used excessively as an ‘ease the pain’ tool.”
In addition to Johnson’s opinion of the study, local psychology teacher Ouida Shephard felt that the study was farfetched due to the inadequate economic background research. She also felt that candy is not the main cause of violence in adults.
“I question the results of this study because they targeted candy,” she said.
She continued by explaining that there could be many other causes of violence in the subjects’ lives, and that using an external reward system does not always work.
Though the results seem vague to some, further research is being conducted by the UK Action on Additives to see if any of the dyes used to manufacture the candy are the source. If so, this campaign will attempt to enforce the action of adding warning labels to the foods containing the harmful dyes.
Because the study is still vague, researchers advise that no one fret about their candy eating habits. More research must be conducted in order to verify these assumptions.
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