Study: Kids + Daily Candy = Adult Violence
Because parents don’t have enough to keep them up at night, there’s this:
An unusual study released in the British Journal of Psychiatry suggests that there is a link between childhood candy consumption and adulthood violence. Simon Moore and others from the University of Cardiff followed 17,000 children for the past 40 year and discovered that those that ate candy daily as 10-year-olds were significantly more likely to be arrested for violent crimes as adults. In fact, 69 percent of the daily sugar eaters had been booked for violence by age 34! Even after accounting for sociological differences, there was still a significant link between candy and violence.
Yikes! That shocking result almost feels fictional, doesn’t it? But it confirms our suspicions that our kids’ criminal tendencies are our parents’ faults, handing out candy all willy-nilly just to make the children love them. We knew no good could come of that.
Seriously, though, it’s actually a pretty interesting article, pointing out that researchers suppose some of this effect is the result of using candy with kids as a kind of instant-gratification reward: Do the chore, get some candy. Eat the veggies, get some candy. Be quiet in church, get some candy. They theorize that teaches kids to expect an immediate pleasure payoff for every bit of effort. Other recent studies seem to suggest a similar instant-gratification issue with TV watching.
So what does the Real World Parent do with this information, besides limiting your kids’ exposure to grandma’s gummies stash? It’s probably not enough to just force-feed them broccoli and board games. Wisdom compels us to go about the difficult task of teaching our kids to embrace delayed gratification, to eventually learn the value of doing what’s good and right even if its not clear what the payoff will be for them, personally. Essentially, we hope to teach them three, big biblical ideas: moderation (see Proverbs 25:27), supernatural self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23), and Christlike servanthood (see Philippians 2) that lives for the good of God and others before my sweet-toothed self.
But it probably wouldn’t hurt to print the article out and put it up on your parents’ refrigerator, while you’re at it.
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