[...]Researchers from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, led by psychologist Simon Moore, studied 7000 people born in 1970 who were part of the British Cohort Study. They found that by age 34, 38 of the participants--90% of them male--had committed at least one violent offense. Of the 28 whose data could be analyzed, 69% ate "confectionery," (which covers candy and anything sugary), nearly every day during childhood. Only 42% of the nonviolent people had indulged daily, according to self-reports when the subjects were 10 years old.
Although lower education levels correlated with daily sweet-eating, the connection with violence remained significant even when the researchers controlled for factors such as family circumstances, parental attitudes, and IQ. "Try as I did, I couldn't get rid of the sweets-violence connection," says Morris.
Genes are an unlikely explanation because what 10-year-olds eat is largely governed by their immediate environment, the researchers report in the October issue of The British Journal of Psychiatry. They suggest that sweet-eating children don't learn to defer gratification and carry impulsive behaviors into adulthood. They also speculate that big candy eaters are also more likely to eat additive-laden food--which some researchers claim has adverse behavioral effects throughout life.
Dietary researcher David Benton of Swansea University in the United Kingdom is skeptical about the group's conclusions, saying the study fails to show a cause-and-effect relationship. He points out that sweet-eating could reflect other behavioral predispositions, or could reflect a particular social and cultural environment, or could signify that other, more healthful, things are absent from a child's diet.
Psychologist Adrian Raine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles is more enthusiastic. "The findings are fascinating," he says. He says one possible explanation for the connection is that a predilection for junk food causes hypoglycemia. That involves drastic fluctuations in blood glucose levels: High glucose levels trigger major insulin secretion to soak it up, which then leads to a shortage of glucose. That, in turn, can lead to nervousness and irritability and provoke "a full-blown aggressive outburst," says Raine, who cites studies linking low blood glucose to violence and aggression.
Correction:
This article has been amended. Data from 7000 of the 17,415 people in the British Cohort Study was used to generate these findings.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1001/3
Sobre a hipótese etiológica:
[...] Pyschologists will remind nutritionists about how children become addicted to foods such as sugar, cheese, chocolate, and meat, by eating the same foods frequently, and especially after performing a valued task as a reward--such as doing chores or homework. The behavior is all about instant gratification.
After getting instant gratification for doing some chore, some behaviorists may say, the children rewarded with candy tend to stop learning how to wait a specific length of time in order to obtain the reward at the end of a chore or learning session. By instant gratification with a candy reward (or even a toy) children have a difficult time being able to defer gratification to a future time.
It's the inability to defer gratification into the future that may keep a child from learning to control impulsive behavior. Psychologists and nutritionists call children mature when they learn to control impulses and delay gratification of eating a candy reward to a future time set by others or specific achievement goals.
Eat a sweet reward releases dopamine in the child's brain, that could addict the child to sugar or any other food that's been called highly addictive--sugar, cheese, chocolate, and meat. But it's sugar that when placed in a baby's mouth that releases the feel-good dopamine in the baby's brain.
The pleasurable sensation of sugar on the tongue of a baby as the dopamine surges through the child's brain associates the sweet taste of sugar or candy with the person giving the candy or the event. It's an instant reward the child wants repeated.
So, the researchers theorize that eating candy could push children towards impulsive, quick decision making and behavior. And not being able to delay gratification to receive a reward later usually is associated with impulsive acts, delinquency, crime, and immaturity when they become adults and have to make choices.
The idea of rearing children is to teach them to delay gratification until they get their reward--graduation from school, accomplishment, and skills to become financially independent in adulthood. But how would delaying gratification or impulsive behavior relate to a child frequently being rewarded with candy? And are children given candy to distract them or to keep them quiet or busy not vying for their busy parent's time?
Scientists emphasize and theorize how frequent candy rewards play a role years later when the child grows up and commits violence. The frequent reward may condition the child's brain to act on impulse instead of controlling the knee-jerk hostility emotion that leads to road rage and similar violent acts. [...]
http://www.groundreport.com/Business/Does-eating-candy-in-childhood-lead-to-violence-in_1/2908649
Abstract do artigo mesmo:
Confectionery consumption in childhood and adult violence
Simon C. Moore, PhD
Violence and Society Research Group, Applied Clinical Research and Public Health, School of Dentistry, Cardiff University
Lisa M. Carter
School of Medicine, Cardiff University
Stephanie van Goozen, PhD
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK
Correspondence: Simon C. Moore, Violence and Society Research Group, Applied Clinical Research and Public Health, School of Dentistry, University of Cardiff, Cardiff CF14 4XY, UK. Email: mooresc2@cardiff.ac.uk
Declaration of interest
None.
Diet has been associated with behavioural problems, including aggression, but the long-term effects of childhood diet on adult violence have not been studied. We tested the hypothesis that excessive consumption of confectionery at age 10 years predicts convictions for violence in adulthood (age 34 years). Data from age 5, 10 and 34 years were used. Children who ate confectionery daily at age 10 years were significantly more likely to have been convicted for violence at age 34 years, a relationship that was robust when controlling for ecological and individual factors.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/195/4/366
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