As I started to pack for thanksgiving break, I came across some leftover candy that I still had from Halloween. I then thought a blog about candy would be pretty interesting to do. So as I searched the internet for some sort of topic I can write about for candy I came across a very strange article. The article was called ” Candy- gobbling kids may turn violent as adults”. (NBCnews.com). So I thought this was an interesting thing to say about candy and kids, so I went on and read about it and looked at the study.
This was a study that was done by British experts who claim that children who ate candy daily grow up to be violent in some kind of way. ” British experts studied over 17,000 children born in the 1970s. Their conclusions were that “of the children who ate candies or chocolates daily at age 10, 69 percent were later arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34, and of those who didn’t have any violent clashes, 42 percent ate sweets daily”.(NBCnews.com). After the studies were done, Simon Moore who was a part of these studies agreed that they needed more studies to be done to really prove this. The experts and Moore tried to “find more controlled variables that linked the candy to the violence such as the child behavior at home and also, the lifestyles that they were living”.(NBCnews.com). Moore concluded “that the candy could not be the blame for the children’s violence in their adult lives, but there could be a link, but it is just hard to say at this point in time”. I Agree with Moore that in order to truly get to the bottom of this, more studies should definitely get done because this is a very interesting topic.
Since this was a study and it was an observational one.Third variables can play a huge role as to why these children became violent in their adult lives. Like Moore said ” parents who consistently bribe their children into good behavior with candies and chocolates could be doing harm to them”.(NBCnew.com). Also because since this was such a huge study it is more likely for a third variable to occur because there are so many people being studied that it’s more likely for something to be different. This also goes with the concept of chance playing a role in this study because anything could have occurred during the years in between of the childs life before ending the study. When it comes to direct and reverse causation I say that there could be a possibility, but in this case I do believe like Moore said, “that more studies need to be done” (NBCnews.com). The direct causation would be that eating candy can lead to a person becoming violent,The reverse causation would be that a violent person eats a lot of candy, but it is actually hard to say that it could be reverse causation also in this instance because when it comes to a study being done over a certain amount of time reverse causation can be ruled out. I will say in my opinion this was an “ok” study. When Moore talked about looking at the more controlled variables in the study, I believe they should have been doing that from the beginning to try and get a more accurate possible answer to this question. To go further into finding out if candy and violence could be a possible link, I think researchers should start off a little bit smaller with the studies. What I mean by that is, when Moore talked about parents bribing their children with candy, I think that should be a study of its own. This study would compare how a child acts when it must be bribed all the time with candy compared to a child who has to be bribed little or to none: seeing their personalities, and actions etc. The smaller studies could give more answers and lead up to better conclusions in my opinion. I do agree with Moore when he said ” this is an incredibly complex area”(NBCnews.com), because it is, and I believe that it is a very difficult link to match up with one another. Overall this is a very cool topic to think about when it comes to kids and eating candy.
This was an interesting article that talked about something I had never though about before. I was curious other than mentally what bad effects candy can have on a person. Other than obvious weight gain and tooth decay, there are a few other negative effects health wise of candy.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/368320-the-effects-of-candy-on-the-body/
Good blog ! It really caught my eye. But in class Andrew always asks if we can rule out reverse causation, chance, and other variables when it comes to finding our conclusions; but in this case I don’t think we can. You are saying that the correlation is between the candy to make the adult angry. But what if it wasn’t the candy. What if it were other variables that branches off of the reason why people ate so much candy. For example, over consumption of candy can cause major health problems such as diabetes, obesity, and heart problems. This can then lead to depression to over all make the person angry. And in this case it wouldn’t necessary be the candy. Also we must think about parents who let their kids eat a surplus amount of candy Do they really care about their childs health? Are these parents lacking in other fields of parenting making their kid to grow up to be angry? We have to think about these other outside factors before coming to a sound conclusion. Very interesting blog though I must say. While I had a lot of counter arguments we have to think about the pros and cons in this situation . With that being said look at this link directing you to a page concerning the pros AND cons of consuming candy. http://foundmagazine.com/2011/04/the-pros-and-cons-of-candy/
Great blog post! I like how you analyzed all of the elements. Yes this was an observational study and there is always the possibility of chance. Also, it was done in a different country, so is it applicable to American children? Another problem I have with the study is that the sample size is so large, there is bound to be something they could have found. Correlation does not always equal causation and this is a great example of that. This could be a good example of the texas sharp shooter problem because they found something in common with a huge group of children. Interesting topic, but great evaluation of it.
Im confused. I do not understand how researchers can test this without turning into an experiment from the age 10 until the receive their information. I do not believe candy relates to violence in anyway, but I have not done research on this topic so I guess I really wouldn’t know. I also believe that bribing is not the way to raise a child, because in the end this is just teaching a kid to not do something unless they get something out of it. By the time they are 10, they should be doing what they are told because they know its the right thing, not because they are going to “earn” a Reese’s out of it. I was never bribed as a child, but after babysitting for many years, I have learned that the more a child is bribed the more bratty they are. Again, I do not thing candy relates to violence, but I do think bribing with candy relates to an ungrateful child.
I agree with your opinion, when I was reading this blog I was very interested how exactly excessive candy eating makes individuals violent. I don’t think that there would be a direct correlation, unless sugar messes with the brain. Third variables are a factor because it may not be the candy itself that causes violence, it could be their personal upbringing or even something as extreme as mental problems. I think this topic would be very interesting to know more about but, I don’t think a study could ever be done because it would be very difficult to put the volunteers in control groups, although an observational study could be done. But that would not be very accurate because the amount of candy consumed could not be monitored.
My first thought after reading about half-way through this blog was “whattt????”. I’ve never heard of the link between candy and violence but it sure did shock me that someone would even look into a link between the two, like Moore did. Here is a quite lengthy but extremely interesting report on understanding the link between nutrition and violent behavior: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4420&page=515.
I agree with your point that without further investigation it can’t be proven that candy causes any violence in people later in life. Third variables certainly have a huge factor in how children grow up and your example about bribes demonstrates that perfectly. If the findings conclude that candy increases the chance of people getting arrested through violent acts then I would think that conclusion might be a false positive because there is so much more that contributes to violence than just a sweet.