Children fed candy and sweets on a daily basis are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes as adults, a new study finds.
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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.
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\"We think that it is more to do with the way that sweets are given to children rather than the sweets themselves,\" Moore said. \"Using sweets to quiet noisy children might just reinforce problems for later in life.\"
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\"While it's an interesting correlation, any scientist will tell you that a correlation never shows causation,\" said Melinda Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. \"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. 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.
Another possibility is that a diet high in sweets is indicative of poor nutrition overall, which could have led to abnormal brain growth during a critical period of development, Johnson added.
