Jon Barron's Natural Health Blog

Tootsie rolls and jellybeans, Snickers bars and Jujubes — these are among the things that send kids into ecstasy. But in one of life’s first cruel ironies, children learn that they pay a price for eating candy. It causes cavities. It causes pimples. It causes bouncing off the walls. It consumes the allowance. And now, a new study says that candy may cause a life of crime.

The research, out of Cardiff University in the U.K., culled data from a long-term study of 17,000 people all born during the same week in 1970. The subjects were followed from birth, periodically answering questions about their lives, their diet, and their health. (Obviously, they were very literate toddlers.) Study director Simon Moore recently reviewed the collected data, looking for links between early diet and later behavior. He discovered that of those subjects convicted of a violent crime by age 34, 69 percent reported that they had eaten candy almost every day in childhood. Of those without criminal records, only 42 percent had been daily candy connoisseurs.

No, the study wasn’t underwritten by Willy Wonka’s nemesis, Ansel Slugworth. In fact, the researchers kept reviewing the data, trying to find some other factor to explain the link. They checked to see if economic status was to blame, or maybe parental permissiveness, or living in a city versus the country, or educational level — but none of these factors made a difference. Candy consumption in childhood still correlated to violent crime later on.

Dr. Moore said, "Initially we thought this [effect] was probably due to something else. So we tried to control for parental permissiveness, economic status, whether the kids were urban or rural. But the result remained. We couldn’t get rid of it."

So is there some crazy-making component in candy that builds up like plaque, eventually causing violence? Moore thinks it’s possible, but it’s more likely that kids who eat candy daily don’t learn impulse control. (Or is it that kids with inherently less impulse control eat more candy because they lack the control?) He also thinks it’s possible that "bad kids" were given candy more regularly to appease them. If this is so, the candy would work much like it did for Skinner’s mice, teaching kids that bad behavior gets a sweet reward. (Or again, is it a question of inherent bad behavior self selecting for more candy consumption?)

Critics, of course, think Moore is leaping to conclusions that don’t hold up. The director of the Food and Drink Federation, Julian Hunt (a totally impartial observer), said, "This is either utter nonsense or a very bad April Fool’s Day joke! Antisocial behavior stems from deep-rooted social and environmental factors such as poor parenting and a deprived upbringing, and is not linked to whether or not you ate sweeties as a kid." (Of course, that’s merely Ms. Hunt’s personal opinion, unsupported by any data.)

And Melinda Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said, "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." (Again, an opinion based on "instinct," not data.)

But in fact, there are huge loopholes in the study. For instance, only 35 out of the 17,000 subjects actually were convicted of violent crimes. That means that 24 of those criminals had a candy eating past, and that’s a very small sample upon which to build a theory. Consider that 7,140 out of the 17,000 ate candy every day and never turned to violent crime. And then, as numerous critics pointed out, there are plenty of factors not controlled for. Did those same 24 criminals, for instance, drink water every day? Did they wear sneakers every day — more days than those not convicted of crimes? Could sneakers and water be a recipe for creating miscreants — even more so than eating Milky Ways? More research needs to be done to confirm that in fact, candy independently correlates to a dissolute life.

Even so, there’s no denying that sugary foods influence behavior. Ask any third-grade teacher what happens after the kids finish devouring a big candy bar, or after they drink a few sodas. Behavioral problems abound when sugary foods prevail. Does the phrase "bouncing off the walls" ring a bell? Also, it may be that those who start eating candy daily in childhood pave the path for a lifetime of poor nutrition. And poor nutritional choices certainly may correlate to poor behavioral choices. In fact, a recent study out of Oxford University found that prisoners who took vitamin supplements had fewer disciplinary problems and were less aggressive than those who took placebos. Numerous studies have shown that foods and various additives affect both mood and behavior. So, maybe the old adage may need to be rephrased: "Spare the nutrition and ruin the child."

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In at least five states, parents have had their children taken away by the government and placed into foster care, or they have completely lost custody, because the kids weighed too much. Ditto in Canada and in the United Kingdom. With two-thirds of all adults in the US now overweight and one third so overweight that they qualify as obese, it’s surprising to hear about obese children being removed from their homes because they are too fat. You’ve got to wonder if the welfare authorities and attorneys and judges and foster parents involved all fall into that minority of adults still at healthy weight, or if they themselves hypocritically tip the scales.

You would think the preponderance of obese individuals would usher in a climate of leniency toward those grappling with weight problems, but apparently not. In fact, according to Dr. Matt Capehorn of the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum, "It’s happening more than the public is aware of, but because these cases are usually kept quiet [as a result of child-privacy laws], we have no record."

The publicized cases have thus far been extreme. In South Carolina, mother Jerri Gray lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son after failing to show up for an appointment with social services. In New York, a 261-pound teenage girl was ordered by the court to follow a prescribed diet and a fitness regimen, although she was allowed to remain at home.  And in Scotland, parents just had a newborn temporarily removed because the whole family is fat. The other six children in the family range in age from three to 13 and weigh between 56 and 220 pounds.  The three- and four-year-old children already have been placed in foster care. The authorities have warned the parents that all the kids will be taken if their weight doesn’t go down.

All of these cases went to court on the grounds that allowing kids to get fat represents a form of abuse. In fact, courts in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, and Indiana already have ruled that medical neglect includes morbid obesity. Although criminal charges against the parents have been filed in several cases, no parent yet has served jail time because junior is fat. But an expert from the British National Obesity Board, Tam Fry, says, "My point will be that we regard malnourished children as being abused and so with those children who are so overweight, either consciously or by neglect because their parents allow it, there should be a case for them being removed from their parents to a pediatric ward and put under weight management by doctors."

And Ron Jones, an Atlanta-based wellness expert, has spearheaded a campaign declaring that child obesity is child abuse. "If you gave your child a drug, you’d be held in the court. But if you kill them with food, that seems to be acceptable," he says.

The thinking is that kids who remain obese will likely develop weight-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and so on unless they get out of the environment where they gained excess weight. They need to go somewhere that will enforce dietary restrictions and teach them healthier eating habits. Meanwhile, their parents need to pay the price for allowing their kids to balloon up.

But some experts decry this type of thinking. Grant Varner, who is the attorney for Ms. Gray, the South Carolina mother mentioned above, says, "If she’s found guilty on those criminal charges, you have set a precedent that opens Pandora’s box. Where do you go next?" In other words, just how fat do kids need to get before they get taken away from their parents, and who makes that determination? Twenty states now have laws that allow schools to screen kids for body mass index. Can the law be interpreted so that kids who "fail" their BMI become wards of the state? These are the questions that critics of the recent actions against parents are asking.

Meanwhile, the welfare authorities universally argue that they wouldn’t remove children from their homes just on the basis of weight, that they only act when there’s an imminent medical threat to children. But let’s get real. The fact is that 30 percent of all kids between the ages of 10 and 17 are now overweight or obese. In Mississippi, that rate is 44 percent. The obesity rates keep climbing — not going down. Studies show that one out of four overweight children already shows early signs of type II diabetes and 60% already have one risk factor for heart disease. And according to the CDC, one in three U.S. children born in 2000 will become diabetic — and if you’re black or Hispanic, that percentage is half. That means that if we are to believe the authorities, one third of all children will be subject to court ordered removal from their homes — and again, half if they’re black or Hispanic. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems a bit Orwellian!

And maybe all the parents of all those kids are indeed endangering the health of their children, and they need to be stopped. But clearly, the problem is so out of control that something needs to be done beyond pressing criminal charges against parents. For instance, consider the fact that food companies are allowed to produce and market foods that make kids fat, no holds barred. And while it’s true that cigarette companies can’t bombard kids with ads during cartoon hour trying to get them to crave tobacco, the makers of candy and chips and greasy prepared foods sure can — and do. They also seduce the parents with promises of no-fuss meals and surefire ways to keep the kids happy, and load the shelves with these products.

As obesity expert Dr. Marc Jacobson of The American Academy of Pediatrics says, "There’s clear evidence that the food industry — fast food restaurants, vending machines, sweetened cereals — influences childhood obesity. I can’t say which is relatively greater in influence [parents or the food industry], but [the food industry] certainly is important. The more fast food restaurants in a community, the more likely the kids are to be obese." If we want to point fingers, the FDA and AMA both endorse high fructose corn syrup, one of the primary culprits in the obesity epidemic, and the US government subsidizes its production and sale. Isn’t it a bit Hansel and Gretelish for the government to subsidize the fattening of our children and then be in charge of removing them from their homes once they get fat?

Meanwhile, the economic realities demand that most parents work during the hours when kids snack and nobody is home to monitor. Parents who don’t have health insurance can’t afford to enroll kids in weight-control programs after the damage is done, and many can’t afford to live in neighborhoods where parks and recreational options abound. And let’s not forget the fact that fast food outlets are concentrated in poor neighborhoods — by design.

David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital in Boston sums up this side of the argument in Time Magazine, "Parents have a responsibility, but it’s also society’s responsibility — the national government spending billions of dollars on farm subsidies for poor-quality foods, communities placing their priorities on development revenue rather than parks, cutbacks to school nutrition. All this is unfair to the kids." In short, holding a few parents criminally responsible won’t end the epidemic of fat kids. Sweeping changes are needed in industry and society. Or perhaps as (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton once said, "It takes a village to raise a child."

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If the smell of beets makes you gag but you simply can’t get enough sour crème and chive potato chips, your Mom may be to blame — and not because of what she fed you growing up. Several studies show that food preferences may be set even before you’re born, as early as 13 weeks after gestation. And those preferences derive from what your Mom ate while you were in the womb.

The process is called "food imprinting," and it works because the scent and flavor of what a pregnant woman eats passes into the amniotic fluid. The fetus ingests that amniotic fluid starting at 12 weeks, and apparently, develops taste preferences based on that experience.

To verify that particular foods eaten by mothers affect later preferences of the baby, researchers at the Monel Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia had pregnant women in their final trimester drink carrot juice four days a week for three consecutive weeks. Six months later, the babies of these women preferred carrot-flavored cereal to other varieties and made fewer unhappy faces when exposed to carrot cereal than babies who had not had prenatal carrot juice. They also consumed 20 percent more carrot-flavored cereal than babies who didn’t have exposure to carrot juice in utero.

A series of similar studies have found parallel results. When mothers consumed lots of peaches during pregnancy, their babies preferred peaches after birth. When nursing mothers ate green beans in large quantities, their babies developed a lasting love of green beans. Similar studies in Europe found that women who consumed plenty of garlic during their pregnancies had babies who enjoyed garlic, and a French study found anise-consumption by pregnant moms imparted a love of anise to their offspring.

"So what that tells you is that there’s some type of memory that’s being formed," said Dr. Julie Menella, director of the carrot-juice study. That’s also the premise of a new book called Feeding Baby Green by pediatrician Dr. Allen Greene. Dr. Greene contends that babies remember the tastes they experienced in the womb and seek them out after birth. He cites a study published in 2008 in the Journal of Physiology in which pregnant animals were divided into two groups: one that ate healthy foods and another that ate fatty, sugary, salty foods including donuts and chips. After giving birth, the offspring that had been exposed to healthy diets in utero wanted healthy foods, while the junk food fetuses turned into junk-food junkies with far more health problems than the animals that came from parents with healthier diets.

(Thank goodness no major food company has yet undertaken a study to discover if brand preferences can be set before birth — if one can cultivate "Kelloggs babies," for instance, as opposed to "Post babies.") Anyway, if a mother can’t get past pickles and ice-cream while pregnant, there’s still hope of salvaging the baby’s food tastes as long as the mother acts quickly after giving birth. Dr. Menella says that what mothers eat while nursing their babies impacts the child’s food tastes, too. In fact, what a child eats in the first seven months of life, combined with the mother’s food intake in the last few months of pregnancy, sets that child’s food preferences for life. Or to put it another way, regular meals of Hamburger Helper, Diet Pepsi, and Ding Dongs while pregnant are probably not in your baby’s best interest.

And as I was saying, this advice also extends to nursing mothers as babies who nurse will probably have more diverse food preferences than babies fed formula. This is because breast milk contains traces of whatever mom has eaten and the baby imprints those various flavors. Formula, on the other hand, has a fixed blend of flavors, exposing the child to limited tastes. The experts suggest that pregnant and nursing moms should eat plenty of diverse fruits and vegetables if they want their children to grow up making wise choices.

They should also avoid drinking, as most pregnant women and nursing mothers know — but now for another reason. Studies have found that rodents exposed to alcohol in utero prefer alcohol-flavored water after birth. Other studies have found a connection between prenatal alcohol exposure and alcoholism later in life. And as described above, a yearning for junk food can be passed on, so pregnant and nursing moms would do well to avoid sugar and unhealthy fats as assiduously as they avoid beer and margueritas. It’s also something to think about when choosing a formula for your baby if you’re bottle feeding. In many formulas, sugar or corn syrup is either the first or second listed ingredient.

That’s especially true because babies naturally prefer sweet tastes, and given limited exposure to other tastes they can easily evolve into sugar junkies. According to Dr. Leann Birch, chair of Pennsylvania State University Department of Health and Human Development, fetuses increase the rate at which they ingest amniotic fluid when a sweet taste is present. Vegetables tend to taste bitter to babies, and so they naturally prefer fruits, but exposing the children to vegetables from before birth can ameliorate that tendency.

The trick is to be consistent. If mom eats a carrot every other week it isn’t going to turn junior into a vegan after birth. By the same token, an ice-cream cone enjoyed by Mom every other month probably won’t lead to baby’s first words being "Cherry Garcia."  As Dr. Birch says, "[F]or an infant to interpret a food as same and acceptable, there has to be repeated exposure — particularly when you get to fruits and vegetables that aren’t naturally sweet"

The side benefit to eating well during pregnancy and lactation, of course, is that mom also gets healthy. But if mom herself was exposed to too many cookies and cakes and convenience foods before her own birth, she may have a difficult time giving up the foods she craves for the duration of her pregnancy — the foods she’s been imprinted to — even though she knows the potential benefits to her offspring and herself. And so the cycle continues, with each generation getting fatter and unhealthier than the previous.

:hc