A new study out this week claims to have found a connection between soda consumption and violence in teenagers. The study included 1,800 Boston public high school students who were asked if they'd been violent toward family members, friends or toward someone they were dating. They also asked the students if they used tobacco, consumed alcohol and how much soda they drank each week.
Not surprisingly, the researchers found that those who drank more soda behaved in more violent ways.
Yeah…it's the soda. That makes total sense.
I agree with Greg Pollowitz over at The Home Front who said of the study "I, too, have a theory on this, though I’m not a scientist: Bad parents linked to teen violence and heavy soda diet."
Greg's right of course, but no one really wants to talk about bad parents. It's much easier (and more headline grabbing in today's anti-corporate culture) to blame big business rather than the obvious culprit of teen violence–the absence of a strong parental influence in many of these teens' lives.
There are some pretty basic things every parent should do: monitor what their kids eat, tell them not to beat up other people, and tell them not to smoke or drink alcohol. If parents fail to provide their children these basic life lessons, you bet you're going to get some soda swigging thugs.
In one news story on the study, Keith Ayoob, a professor of pediatrics, commented that "if [these kids] are carrying a weapon and have been violent, that may be a marker of a less-stable lifestyle."
Ya think?
Ayoob goes on to observe that these kids "may be less likely to be concerned with nutrition…"
I agree with Professor Ayoob. I think it’s safe to say that if you're packin' heat at 13, you're probably not concerned about your daily sugar intake.
Studies like this will continue to come out and food nannies will no-doubt use them to further demonize the food industry. We don't need a "scientific" study to see what is the real problem facing kids today: parents who aren't parenting.