Fish v. Drugs for Children And Criminals

Submitted by tonyplant on April 16, 2006 - 13:27.

 

When most of us think about Eating Our Way To Happiness we tend to think delicious doesn't exist on the same spectrum as nutritious. There are several T.V. advertising campaigns promising happiness in association with foodstuffs at present. Pop Quiz. Do you think that these foodstuffs are vegetables or confectionery? Nutrient-dense or nutrient-poor? How much truth is there in this advertising?

Does it matter? Well, according to research conducted in prisons, the nutritional profile of what we eat may matter a great deal. Physiologist Bernard Gesch had lead this research in UK prisons and is quoted as claiming that:

Research suggests that we may have seriously under-estimated the importance of nutrition for our social behaviour. Since the 1950s there has been a ten-fold increase in offences. How else can we explain that but by diet? It is not down to genetics. The main change over that period has been in nutrients.

Gesch's trials with supplements in a prison population indicated that inmates responded with a drop by more than a third in their level of antisocial behaviour (as measured by assaults and similar transgressions) relative to their previous records. For some, this raises questions about the link between diet and behaviour, and the link between violence and free will. Gesch was interviewed on the topic for the New York Times [behind a paywall] and argues:

But how do you exercise that free will without using your brain?. And how, exactly, is the brain going to work properly without an adequate nutrient supply?"

Our legal system recognises the influence of some organic brain disorders on our behaviour. More controversially, some argue that impulsive acts of violence are more a failure to rein in one's worst instincts than a choice. However, Gesch does temper enthusiasm for the transformative power of adequate nutrition:

The brain needs to be nourished in two ways. It needs to be educated, and it needs nutrients. Both social and physical factors are important.

He is not advocating for a Jamie Oliver make-over of prison dinners. He doesn't think that serving fish, nuts, seeds and vegetables to violent criminals would have a sustainable effect, independent of other rehabilitation programmes. But, he does make some interesting arguments for the contribution of nutrition to our emotional state and behaviour.

Is even the implication that we can reduce violent behaviour by changing what people eat sounding dangerously like "The junk food made me do it"? Does the research threaten to exculpate us from responsibility for some of our most egregious actions that would otherwise attract social opprobrium? Is the idea offensive to our moral and political intuitions?

There is controversy about the enforcement of compulsory medication for people with serious mental illness. There are civil liberties arguments about the state's right to demand medication that some believe enforces docility and socially-determined behaviour. There are many complaints about the Nanny State tenor of much of the public health advice. If T.V. threatens us with cognitive dissolution and social failure what might failure to munch our seeds, eat our vegetables and finish up our fish do to us?

 

However, I have an uneasy feeling that there is a lot of good research that demonstrates the benefits of a nutrition-rich diet for children. Conversely, there is also the spectre that junk-food medicates children towards emotional and behavioural disorders. I'm part of a society where some child psychiatrists argue that ten percent of children have ADHD of sufficient severity to warrant medication. Other psychiatrists argue that ADHD is over-diagnosed and frequently a social objection to rowdy outbursts and impulsive behaviour.

The controversies will continue. The choice isn't as simple as drugs like Ritalin, Adderall or Concerta versus seeds, fish, a side-order of vegetables and a radical change in what we eat. A lot of us would not make the change, no matter how compelling the research was. Gladwell offers an entertaining illustration of this in his essay, The Trouble With Fries. Researchers developed a low-fat burger that outperformed other burgers in blinded taste tests. So, the taste was fine, but the burgers had a "psychological handicap" that made them a market failure:

People liked AU Lean in blind taste tests because they didn't know it was AU Lean; they were fooled into thinking it was regular ground beef. But nobody was fooled when it came to the McLean Deluxe. It was sold as the healthy choice--and who goes to McDonald's for health food?

Gladwell discusses studies that examine children's expectations of food. Even when children are full, some of them will eat a lot of junk food when it is offered to them, if their access to such food is typically restricted by parents.

Because the children on restricted diets had been told that junk food was bad for them, they clearly thought that it had to taste good. When it comes to junk food, we seem to follow an implicit script that powerfully biases the way we feel about food. We like fries not in spite of the fact that they're unhealthy but because of it.

Gladwell acknowledges that it is counter-intuitive but concludes that the push to more transparent food-labelling is backfiring. We bring our associations and prejudices to the table and various food manufacturers have spent a lot of money to influence those.

[S]ometimes nothing is more deadly for our taste buds than the knowledge that what we are eating is good for us. McDonald's should never have called its new offering the McLean Deluxe, in other words. They should have called it the Burger Supreme or the Monster Burger, and then buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site.

The Independent On Sunday styles us as Dependency Britain, and claims that our situation is desperate:

Britain is in the grip of a damaging dependence on anti-depressant drugs such as Prozac, prompting calls from mental health experts for a radical rethink in the treatment of the 3.5 million people affected. The prescription of so-called "happy pills" has risen by more than 120 percent in the past decade amid soaring levels of depression and anxiety.

I have a problem with the way in which prescriptions for anti-depressants are interpreted, however, are we really food-medicating ourself into poor physical, emotional and mental health? Isn't nutritionally-dense food only ever part of a strategy for obtaining and maintaining health in these areas? Is the research relevant for everyone, or just the people who have to accept others' control-like children and criminals? What would really be better for me, right now? Some of the heavily advertised chocolate that the EU wanted to be renamed vegelate because it contains such small amounts of actual chocolate? Or some salmon, followed by a nice fruit platter?

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project

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