You Do What You Eat

[Guest guest]

You Do What You Eat

By Marco Visscher, Ode

Posted on September 8, 2005

http://www.alternet.org/story/25122/

At first glance, there seems nothing special about the students at this high

school in Appleton, Wisconsin. They appear calm, interact comfortably with one

another, and are focused on their schoolwork. No apparent problems.

 

And yet a couple of years ago, there was a police officer patrolling the halls

at this school for developmentally challenged students. Many of the students

were troublemakers, there was a lot of fighting with teachers and some of the

kids carried weapons.

 

School counsellor Greg Bretthauer remembers when he first came to Appleton

Central Alternative High School back in 1997, for a job interview: " I found the

students to be rude, obnoxious and ill-mannered. " He had no desire to work with

them, and turned down the job.

 

Several years later, Bretthauer took the job after seeing that the atmosphere at

the school had changed profoundly. Today he describes the students as " calm and

well-behaved " in a new video documentary, Impact of Fresh, Healthy Foods on

Learning and Behavior. Fights and offensive behavior are extremely rare and the

police officer is no longer needed. What happened?

 

A glance through the halls at Appleton Central Alternative provides the answer.

The vending machines have been replaced by water coolers. The lunchroom took

hamburgers and french fries off the menu, making room for fresh vegetables and

fruits, whole-grain bread and a salad bar.

 

Is that all? Yes, that's all. Principal LuAnn Coenen is still surprised when she

speaks of the " astonishing " changes at the school since she decided to

drastically alter the offering of food and drinks eight years ago: " I don't have

the vandalism. I don't have the litter. I don't have the need for high

security. "

 

The Problems with 'Convenience Foods'

 

It is tempting to dismiss what happened at Appleton Central Alternative as the

wild fantasies of health-food and vitamin-supplement fanatics. After all,

scientists have never empirically investigated the changes at the school.

Healthy nutrition -- especially the effects of vitamin and mineral supplements

-- appears to divide people into opposing camps of fervent believers, who trust

the anecdotes about diets changing people's lives, and equally fervent skeptics,

who dismiss these stories as hogwash.

 

And yet it is not such a radical idea that food can affect the way our brains

work -- and thus our behavior. The brain is an active machine: It only accounts

for two percent of our body weight, but uses a whopping 20 percent of our

energy. In order to generate that energy, we need a broad range of nutrients --

vitamins, minerals and unsaturated fatty acids -- that we get from nutritious

meals. The question is: What are the consequences when we increasingly shovel

junk food into our bodies?

 

It is irrefutably true that our eating habits have dramatically changed over the

past 30-odd years. " Convenience food " has become a catch-all term that covers

all sorts of frozen, microwaved and out-and-out junk foods. The ingredients of

the average meal have been transported thousands of kilometres before landing on

our plates; it's not hard to believe that some of the vitamins were lost in the

process.

 

We already know obesity can result if we eat too much junk food, but there may

be greater consequences of unhealthy diets than extra weight around our middles.

Do examples like the high school in Wisconsin point to a direct connection

between nutrition and behavior? Is it simply coincidence that the increase in

aggression, crime and social incivility in Western society has paralleled a

spectacular change in our diet? Could there be a link between the two?

 

Stephen Schoenthaler, a criminal-justice professor at California State

University in Stanislaus, has been researching the relationship between food and

behavior for more than 20 years.He has proven that reducing the sugar and fat

intake in our daily diets leads to higher IQs and better grades in school.

 

When Schoenthaler supervised a change in meals served at 803 schools in

low-income neighborhoods in New York City, the number of students passing final

exams rose from 11 percent below the national average to five percent above.

 

He is best known for his work in youth detention centers. One of his studies

showed that the number of violations of house rules fell by 37 percent when

vending machines were removed and canned food in the cafeteria was replaced by

fresh alternatives. He summarizes his findings this way: " Having a bad diet

right now is a better predictor of future violence than past violent behavior. "

 

But Schoenthaler's work is under fire. A committee from his own university has

recommended suspending him for his allegedly improper research methods:

Schoenthaler didn't always use a placebo as a control measure and his group of

test subjects wasn't always chosen at random. This criticism doesn't refute

Schoenthaler's research that nutrition has an effect on behavior. It means most

of his studies simply lack the scientific soundness needed to earn the respect

of his colleagues.

 

The Prison Test

 

Recent research that -- even Schoenthaler's critics admit -- was conducted

flawlessly, showed similar conclusions. Bernard Gesch, physiologist at the

University of Oxford, decided to test the anecdotal clues in the most thorough

study so far in this field. In a prison for men between the ages of 18 and 21 in

England's Buckinghamshire, 231 volunteers were divided into two groups: One was

given nutrition supplements along with their meals that contained our

approximate daily needs for vitamins, minerals and fatty acids; the other group

got placebos. Neither the prisoners, nor the guards, nor the researchers at the

prison knew who took fake supplements and who got the real thing.

 

The researchers then tallied the number of times the participants violated

prison rules, and compared it to the same data that had been collected in the

months leading up to the nutrition study. The prisoners given supplements for

four consecutive months committed an average of 26 percent fewer violations

compared to the preceding period. Those given placebos showed no marked change

in behaviour. For serious breaches of conduct, particularly the use of violence,

the number of violations decreased 37 percent for the men given nutrition

supplements, while the placebo group showed no change.

 

The experiment was carefully constructed, ruling out the possibility that

ethnic, social, psychological or other variables could affect the outcome.

Prisons are popular places to conduct studies for good reason: There is a strict

routine; participants sleep and exercise the same number of hours every day and

eat the same things at the same time.

 

Says John Copas, professor in statistical methodology at the University of

Warwick: " This is the only trial I have ever been involved with from the social

sciences which is designed properly and with a good analysis. " As a randomized,

double-blind, placebo-controlled study, Gesch emerges with convincing scientific

proof that poor nutrition plays a role in triggering aggressive behavior.

 

Sugar's Not the Only Problem

 

Indeed, the study proves what every parent already knows. Serve soda and candy

at a children's birthday party and you'll get loud, hyperactive behavior

followed by tears and tantrums. It works like this: Blood-sugar levels jump

suddenly after you eat sugar, which initially gives you a burst of fresh energy.

But then your blood sugar falls, and you become lethargic and sleepy. In an

attempt to prevent blood-sugar levels from falling too low, your body produces

adrenalin, which makes you irritable and explosive.

 

But sugar can't be the only problem. After all, high blood-sugar levels mainly

have a short-term effect on behavior, while the research of Schoenthaler and

Gesch indicates changes over a longer period. They suggest it is much more

important that you get the right amount of vitamins, minerals and unsaturated

fatty acids because these substances directly influence the brain, and therefore

behavior.

 

If these findings prove true -- and they do look convincing -- then we should be

sounding an alarm about good nutrition. What are the long-term implications of

the fact that the quality of our farmland has sharply declined in recent

decades? The use of artificial fertilizer for years on end has diminished the

levels of important minerals like magnesium, chromium and selenium, therefore

present in much lower concentrations in our food.

 

The eating habits of children and young people also should be a cause for

serious concern. Their diets now are rich in sugar, fats and carbohydrates, and

poor in vegetables and fruit. Add to this an increasing lack of exercise among

kids, and the problem becomes even worse. The World Health Organization (WHO)

talks of an epidemic of overweight among children. Obesity, the official name

for serious weight problems, is said to absorb up to six percent of the total

health budget -- a cautious estimate as all kinds of related diseases cannot be

included in the exact calculation. Think of what this situation will look like

when the current generation of overweight kids hits middle age.

 

The link between food and health is better understood by most people than the

relationship between food and behavior, so health has become the driving force

behind many public campaigns to combat overweight. A discussion has arisen in a

number of countries about introducing a tax on junk food, the proceeds of which

would be spent on promoting healthy eating. In Britain, Prime Minister Blair announced in May he planned to spend an extra 280 million pounds (the

equivalent of 420 million euros or $500 million U.S.) on improving school

lunches after the famous television chef Jamie Oliver began speaking out on the

issue.

 

Yet with crime a major political issue almost everywhere, it's surprising more

leaders have not embraced the idea of healthy eating as a recipe for safe

streets and schools. After Gesch published his findings in 2002 in The British

Journal of Psychiatry, the study was picked up by European and American media.

The newspaper headlines were clear: " Healthy eating can cut crime " ; " Eat right

or become a criminal; " " Youth crime linked to consumption of junk food; "

" Fighting crime one bite at a time. " Then the media went deafeningly silent.

 

Perhaps that's because the relationship between nutrition and violence continues

to be controversial in established professional circles. During their

educations, doctors and psychologists are given scant training in nutrition,

criminologists provided little awareness of biochemistry, and nutritionists

offered no hands-on experience with lawbreakers or the mentally ill. As a

result, the link between food and behaviour winds up in no-man's-land. Even

researchers interested in the subject are discouraged -- not least of all

because you can't get a patent on natural nutrients like vitamins and minerals.

Far more effort goes into pharmaceutical, rather than dietary, solutions.

 

The Netherlands currently is the only country where Gesch's research is being

explored. Plans to test the findings about nutrition supplements and behaviour

further are being set up in 14 prisons, with nearly 500 subjects. Ap Zaalberg,

leading the project for the Dutch Ministry of Justice, remembers how he and his

colleagues reacted when they first heard of Gesch's study. " Disbelief, " he

states resolutely. " This was surely not true. But when I looked into the issue

more closely, I landed in a world of hard science. "

 

Zaalberg knows diet is not the only factor that determines whether someone

exhibits aggressive behavior. " Aggression is not only determined by nutrition, "

he states. " Background and drug use, for example, also play a role. Yet I

increasingly see the introduction of vitamins and minerals as a very rational

approach. "

 

" Most criminal-justice systems assume that criminal behaviour is entirely a

matter of free will, " Gesch says. " But how exactly can you exercise free will

without involving your brain? How exactly can the brain function without an

adequate nutrient supply? Nutrition in fact could be a major player and, for

sure, we have seriously underestimated its importance. I think nutrition may

actually be one of the most straightforward factors to change antisocial

behaviour. And we know that it's not only highly effective, it's also cheap and

humane. "

 

Cheap it is. Natural Justice, the British charity institution chaired by Gesch,

which is researching " the origins of anti-social and criminal behaviour, "

estimates it would cost 3.5 million pounds (5.3 million euros or 6.4 million

U.S. dollars) to provide supplements to all the prisoners in Great Britain. That

is only a fraction of the current prison budget of 2 billion pounds (3 billion

euros or 3.6 billion U.S. dollar).

 

Finding Safety Through the Stomach

 

It seems the link between nutrition and antisocial behaviour shows great promise

as both political issue and human-interest story. How much longer will

politicians concentrate on police and stricter surveillance as the answer to

crime? When will they realize healthy food can help create a healthier society?

After all, people would not only be more productive, but the cost of health care

and of the criminal-justice system would decline. As is the case for a man's

love, the way to safety may be through the stomach.

 

As Bernard Gesch notes, " Few scientists are not convinced that diet is

fundamental for the development of the human brain. Is it plausible that in the

last 50 years we could have made spectacular changes to the human diet without

any implications for the brain? I don't think so. Now, evidence is mounting that

putting poor fuel into the brain significantly affects social behaviour. We need

to know more about the composition of the right nutrients. It could be the

recipe for peace. "

 

Marco Visscher is a senior editor at Ode.

 

 

© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/25122/

 

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