Comments on: Is Sugar the Gateway to Violence?

By: dso

dso — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:24:51 +0000

What about the fact that, depressed or not, he committed the crime? Is this man not an adult? What about the fact that the jury bought it as a viable excuse? What were THEY eating?

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:12:08 +0000

You skeptics are quick to dismiss that study. Don’t ignore the reality that sugars aren’t really good for anything, and if they do increase violent behavior, that’d be just another reason against sugar consumption amongst a long list of others.

By: Meghan Holohan

Meghan Holohan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:19:19 +0000

Someone asked what the percentage of adults who ate sugar every day at age 10 and were violent at 34–the authors say 42 percent of 34 year-old people who didn’t eat sugar daily were violent. They do also admit that they need to do more research to understand the relationship between sugar and violence.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:56:15 +0000

I think the article is very interesting. As a teacher, you notice how diet affects their learning abilities, so this could be plausible. But like anything else there are other environmental factors that influence the behavior.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:33:36 +0000

The Straight Dope actually addressed this. I linked to it.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:30:35 +0000

I’d read somewhere that the notion of a ‘Twinkie Defense’ was a bit of a misnomer. To wit, White claimed that his diet was a symptom of his depression, not the cause of it.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:01:09 +0000

Or perhaps kids who are violent tended to have crappy parents, who let them eat sweets on a daily basis. In which case its much more likely that the crappy parenting is behind their violence than their food choices. This is silly.

By: Jen Sweeney

Jen Sweeney — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:37:16 +0000

In what world do kids only want sweets? My kids want to play the Wii all day long, to wear their favorite shirt when it’s dirty, to play outside instead of doing their homework…there are many ways teach delaying gratification aside from denying your child a sweet treat. The researchers’ “favored explanation” is oversimplified.

By: Celare

Celare — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:11:29 +0000

Maybe no one mentioned to these researchers that correlation does not equal causation… My favorite example being the correlation between rates of violent acts and ice cream sales, where the culprit is more likely rising temperatures.
It seems like could be a chance that upbringing has something to do with both a child’s diet and adult violence later in life.

By: Tdl

Tdl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:51:49 +0000

I agree with you, Teri. This study is definitely lacking. These researchers are quick to draw conclusions.

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