This is not an EM article – but it was too bizarre to pass up. Apparently, the use of soft drinks and junk food is a validated legal strategy for justifying homicide (e.g., the ‘Twinkie Defense’) – and this study finds an association to support it.
2,725 Boston high-school students surveyed regarding non-diet soft drink use and violence towards peers, dates, children, or firearm use. Attempting to control for other factors, they eventually find statistically significant associations between youths who drink >5 cans of soft drinks in a week and increased alcohol use, increased tobacco use, as well as all categories of violence. In fact, with all four categories of violence, the incidence of each increased in a dose-dependent manner with soft drink consumption.
This is, of course, an observed association, not necessarily a causal relationship, although the authors speculate on how sugars and caffeine might incite aggression. If you are the parent of a high-school student, it isn’t necessarily going to prevent violence to deny them access to non-diet soft drinks – but, if your high-school student is a heavy soft drink consumer, look out!
“The ‘Twinkie Defense’: the relationship between carbonated non-diet soft drinks and violence perpetration among Boston high school students.”
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2011/10/14/injuryprev-2011-040117.abstract