'A sweet a day helps your children grow up violent' is the headline in The Independent this morning, which is reporting on a study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. Now, it's not every day that I agree with Julian Hunt of the Food and Drink Federation, but at first sight I did have some sympathy with his view that 'this is either utter nonsense or a bad April Fool's joke' (as quoted in The Daily Mirror).
I haven't yet had the chance to have a look at this study, but when I read the newspaper coverage further, the study suggests that the association between consumption of confectionery in childhood and increased convictions for violent crimes later in life was not a direct result of consumption of sweets (as implied by the headlines), rather than failure of children to learn the benefits of delayed gratification. So the suggestion is that the problem is impulsive behaviour leading to delinquency, rather than the sweets themselves. In which case, Julian, they may have a point.
Perhaps someone who has read this study can illuminate us on the science, not the headline.