The Guardian
(London) May 2, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1765302,00.html
Tough on crime, to hell
with the causes of crime if they make
money
Research shows a direct
link between junk food and violent behaviour.
But governments are in
cahoots with the industry
By George
Monbiot
Does television cause
crime? The idea that people copy the violence
they watch is debated
endlessly by criminologists. But this column
concerns an odder and
perhaps more interesting idea: if crime leaps
out of the box, it is not
the programmes that are responsible as much
as the material in
between. It proposes that violence emerges from
those blissful images of
family life, purged of all darkness, that we
see in the
advertisements.
Let me begin, in
constructing this strange argument, with a paper
published in the latest
edition of Archives of Pediatrics and
Adolescent Medicine. It
provides empirical support for the contention
that children who watch
more television eat more of the foods it
advertises. "Each hour
increase in television viewing," it found,
"was associated with an
additional 167 kilocalories per day." Most of
these extra calories were
contained in junk foods: fizzy drinks,
crisps, biscuits, sweets,
burgers and chicken nuggets. Watching
television, the paper
reported, "is also inversely associated with
intake of fruit and
vegetables".
There is no longer any
serious debate about what a TV diet does to
your body. A government
survey published last month shows that the
proportion of children in
English secondary schools who are
clinically obese has
almost doubled in 10 years. Today, 27% of girls
and 24% of boys between 11
and 15 years old suffer from this
condition, which means
they are far more likely to contract diabetes
and to die before the age
of 50. But the more interesting question is
what this diet might do to
your mind. There are now scores of studies
suggesting that it hurts
the brain as much as it hurts the heart and
the pancreas. Among the
many proposed associations is a link between
bad food and violent or
antisocial behaviour.
The most spectacular
results were those reported in the Journal of
Nutritional and
Environmental Medicine in 1997. The researchers
had
conducted a double-blind,
controlled experiment in a jail for chronic
offenders aged between 13
and 17. Many of the boys there were
deficient in certain
nutrients. They consumed, on average, only 63%
of the iron, 42% of the
magnesium, 39% of the zinc, 39% of the
vitamin B12 and 34% of the
folate in the US government's recommended
daily allowance. The
researchers treated half the inmates with
capsules containing the
missing nutrients, and half with placebos.
They also counselled all
the prisoners in the trial about improving
their diets. The number of
violent incidents caused by inmates in the
control group (those
taking the placebos) fell by 56%, and in the
experimental group by 80%.
But among the inmates in the placebo group
who refused to improve
their diets, there was no reduction. The
researchers also wired
their subjects to an electroencephalograph to
record brainwave patterns,
and found a major decrease in
abnormalities after 13
weeks on supplements.
A similar paper, published
in 2002 in the British Journal of
Psychiatry, found that
among young adult prisoners given supplements
of the vitamins, minerals
and fatty acids in which they were
deficient, disciplinary
offences fell by 26% in the experimental
group, and not at all in
the control group. Researchers in Finland
found that all 68 of the
violent offenders they tested during another
study suffered from
reactive hypoglycaemia: an abnormal tolerance of
glucose caused by an
excessive consumption of sugar, carbohydrates
and stimulants such as
caffeine.
In March this year the
lead author of the 2002 report, Bernard Gesch,
told the Ecologist
magazine that "having a bad diet is now a better
predictor of future
violence than past violent behaviour ...
Likewise, a diagnosis of
psychopathy, generally perceived as being a
better predictor than a
criminal past, is still miles behind what you
can predict just from
looking at what a person eats."
Why should a link between
diet and behaviour be surprising? Quite
aside from the
physiological effects of eating too much sugar
(apparent to anyone who
has attended a children's party), the brain,
whose function depends on
precise biochemical processes, can't work
properly with insufficient
raw materials. The most important of these
appear to be unsaturated
fatty acids (especially the omega 3 types),
zinc, magnesium, iron,
folate and the B vitamins, which happen to be
those in which the
prisoners in the 1997 study were most
deficient.
A report published at the
end of last year by the pressure group
Sustain explained what
appear to be clear links between deteriorating
diets and the growth of
depression, behavioural problems, Alzheimer's
and other forms of mental
illness. Sixty per cent of the dry weight
of the brain is fat, which
is "unique in the body for being
predominantly composed of
highly unsaturated fatty acids". Zinc and
magnesium affect both its
metabolism of lipids and its production of
neurotransmitters - the
chemicals which permit the nerve cells to
communicate with each
other.
The more junk you eat, the
less room you have for foods which contain
the chemicals the brain
needs. This is not to suggest that food
advertisers are solely
responsible for the decline in the nutrients
we consume. As Graham
Harvey's new book We Want Real Food shows,
industrial farming,
dependent on artificial fertilisers, has greatly
reduced the mineral
content of vegetables, while the quality of meat
and milk has also
declined. Nor do these findings suggest that a
poor
diet is the sole cause of
crime and antisocial behaviour. But the
studies I have read
suggest that any government that claims to take
crime seriously should
start hitting the advertisers.
Instead, our government
sits back while the television regulator,
Ofcom, canoodles with the
food industry. While drawing up its plans
to control junk food
adverts, Ofcom held 29 meetings with food
producers and advertisers
and just four with health and consumer
groups. The results can be
seen in the consultation document it
published. It proposes to
do nothing about adverts among programmes
made for children over
nine and nothing about the adverts the younger
children watch most often.
Which? reports that the most popular ITV
programmes among two- to
nine-year-olds are Dancing on Ice,
Coronation Street and
Emmerdale, but Ofcom plans to regulate only the
programmes made
specifically for the under-nines. It claims that
tougher rules would cost
the industry too much. To sustain the share
values of the commercial
broadcasters, Ofcom is prepared to sacrifice
the physical and
psychological wellbeing of our
children.
At the European level, the
collusion is even more obvious. Last week,
Viviane Reding, the
European media commissioner, spoke to a group of
broadcasters about her
plans to allow product placement in European
TV programmes (this means
that the advertisers would be allowed to
promote their wares
during, rather than just between, the
programmes). She
complained that her proposal had been attacked
by
the European parliament.
"You have to fight if you want to keep it,"
she told the TV
executives. "I would like to make it very clear
that
I need your support in
this."
I spent much of last week
trying to discover whether the Home Office
is taking the research
into the links between diet and crime
seriously. In the past, it
has insisted that further studies are
needed, while failing to
fund them. First my request was met with
incredulity, then I was
stonewalled. Tough on crime. To hell with the
causes of
crime.