Study on Child Behavior and Sugary Beveragers

http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/16/soda-contributes-to-behavior-problems-among-young-children/?hpt=hp_t3

TL : DR - Children behave "more badly" if they are consume more sugary drinks than their "sugarless drink drinking" peers.

Among children 5 years old, according to the latest research, those drinking more sugar-sweetened sodas showed increased aggression, withdrawal and difficulty paying attention than those drinking fewer or none of the beverages.

This thread is more about the research itself and the conclusion made than the result. I hold the opinion that study amounts to little more than "junk science" that was intended to garner attention...making it pop-science which, for me, is almost interchangeable with "junk-science."

If you agree with the results, explain why. If you disagree with the study, please explain why.

If the data is accurate, it still doesn't mean that sugary water is necessarily the cause. A simple, other explanation (surely one of many) would be that if children are not allowed to drink certain drinks, it means the parents take more of an interest in managing their children. You could then say that perhaps stricter parents lead to more "well behaved" kids.

Originally posted by Bardock42
If the data is accurate, it still doesn't mean that sugary water is necessarily the cause. A simple, other explanation (surely one of many) would be that if children are not allowed to drink certain drinks, it means the parents take more of an interest in managing their children. You could then say that perhaps stricter parents lead to more "well behaved" kids.

That's the same thing I stated on anothersite when reading over the study. It just seems so glaringly obvious that some children have better behavioral influences.

Oh, and the caffeine. Yeah, that. But who are we to question "science", right? I mean, where is our evidence that our skepticism is correct? lol

Originally posted by dadudemon
That's the same thing I stated on anothersite when reading over the study. It just seems so glaringly obvious that some children have better behavioral influences.

it says the study did what it could to control for such things

I imagine the research itself is upfront about its own limitations and suggests more be done to look at the actual causal mechanisms at work, rather than the media publication with a clear agenda.

a perfect study doesn't exist, ya?

A lot of this sort of thing is psychological. It is culturally expected that children become hyperactive on sugar, even if that makes little scientific sense. Such an expectation can be very powerful- children can pick up on the idea, parents explain away bad behaviour on that basis, and it becomes 'allowed' to act in a certain way when eating sugar, and then when you grow up it becomes an inbuilt response that you in turn pass onto your own kids.

Similarly, I understand there is a set of studies showing that the effects of alcohol are heavily influenced by what your culture thinks alcohol does to people.

in the case of sugar, cause might actually work in the other direction. people with attentional and behavioural issues are known to seek sensory arousal, and may simply ask for soda more than those without.

There are plenty of explanations for why the research came out the way it did, however, exclaiming it is rubbish as if the researchers made an imperfect study out of malice or ignorance is also sort of uncalled for.

Originally posted by Oliver North
in the case of sugar, cause might actually work in the other direction. people with attentional and behavioural issues are known to seek sensory arousal, and may simply ask for soda more than those without.

There are plenty of explanations for why the research came out the way it did, however, exclaiming it is rubbish as if the researchers made an imperfect study out of malice or ignorance is also sort of uncalled for.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
A lot of this sort of thing is psychological. It is culturally expected that children become hyperactive on sugar, even if that makes little scientific sense. Such an expectation can be very powerful- children can pick up on the idea, parents explain away bad behaviour on that basis, and it becomes 'allowed' to act in a certain way when eating sugar, and then when you grow up it becomes an inbuilt response that you in turn pass onto your own kids.

Similarly, I understand there is a set of studies showing that the effects of alcohol are heavily influenced by what your culture thinks alcohol does to people.

I didn't actually read the study...but, couldn't they control these factors with a placebo group?

Originally posted by Oliver North
it says the study did what it could to control for such things

It does but I don't think controlling for (my memory may be failing me) parental depression and the limited controls they would have had over diet would be enough. I would like to know how they attempted to "control for diet".

Originally posted by Oliver North
I imagine the research itself is upfront about its own limitations and suggests more be done to look at the actual causal mechanisms at work, rather than the media publication with a clear agenda.

a perfect study doesn't exist, ya?

I didn't read anything about them being upfront about their limitations but in the news article, the writer does bring up other valid points like caffeine being involved.

This study just smacks of way too many uncontrollable variables. No perfect study exists but this one could have been done quite a bit better (but, during the planning phase of the study, they could have uncovered that they research they were doing was probably going to be futile and even contradicted by existing research...don't researchers have a best-practice methodology for conducting research?). This is why I think it was just an attention-getting study rather than a highly controlled and well-thought-out study.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
A lot of this sort of thing is psychological. It is culturally expected that children become hyperactive on sugar, even if that makes little scientific sense. Such an expectation can be very powerful- children can pick up on the idea, parents explain away bad behaviour on that basis, and it becomes 'allowed' to act in a certain way when eating sugar, and then when you grow up it becomes an inbuilt response that you in turn pass onto your own kids.

Similarly, I understand there is a set of studies showing that the effects of alcohol are heavily influenced by what your culture thinks alcohol does to people.

hmm

That makes a lot of sense. I think this study shows more about the parents (and as you said, the culture), than the children, themselves. I have a difficult time imagining it showing anything else.

Originally posted by Oliver North
There are plenty of explanations for why the research came out the way it did, however, exclaiming it is rubbish as if the researchers made an imperfect study out of malice or ignorance is also sort of uncalled for.

I hope I did not make it seem like I thought they did this research out of malice. Not even remotely what I was doing. But out of funding and attention...with the hopes of getting to do other projects.

But it does seem like there was some ignorance since there are other studies that would be directly related to what they are doing that should have stopped them from actually proceeding with the primary portion of the research itself.

For me, that's the red flag that they were just churning out stuff rather than looking for meaningful science that could help make a difference with parenting children.

Originally posted by Oliver North
in the case of sugar, cause might actually work in the other direction. people with attentional and behavioural issues are known to seek sensory arousal, and may simply ask for soda more than those without.

There are plenty of explanations for why the research came out the way it did, however, exclaiming it is rubbish as if the researchers made an imperfect study out of malice or ignorance is also sort of uncalled for.

I never knew you were paid off by the eco-health and pure, spring water industrial complex...

Originally posted by Bardock42
I never knew you were paid off by the eco-health and pure, spring water industrial complex...

He's not being paid by them. His motives are due to not having any Equal.

Originally posted by Master Han
I didn't actually read the study...but, couldn't they control these factors with a placebo group?

they tried to, but in all studies like this, one of the greatest limiting factors is the ability to get participants. The more strict the controls, the more specifically matched individuals in the control group must be with experimental group. Not to mention, the more invasive the experiment is into the personality and lives of the participants (ie: you are monitoring more things). In some cases, getting 100 couples can be very difficult if you are doing more than getting them to self-report on a questionnaire. Additionally, things like "parenting style" aren't easy to nail down empirically in the first place, so it is hard to know what variables would need to be controlled for.

In this case, if something that contributed to both childhood behaviour and soda consumption wasn't controlled for in the experimental methods, the control group would do nothing to protect the results from being impacted.

Originally posted by dadudemon
It does but I don't think controlling for (my memory may be failing me) parental depression and the limited controls they would have had over diet would be enough. I would like to know how they attempted to "control for diet".

I didn't read anything about them being upfront about their limitations but in the news article, the writer does bring up other valid points like caffeine being involved.

This study just smacks of way too many uncontrollable variables. No perfect study exists but this one could have been done quite a bit better (but, during the planning phase of the study, they could have uncovered that they research they were doing was probably going to be futile and even contradicted by existing research...don't researchers have a best-practice methodology for conducting research?). This is why I think it was just an attention-getting study rather than a highly controlled and well-thought-out study.

---------------------------------------------------------

I hope I did not make it seem like I thought they did this research out of malice. Not even remotely what I was doing. But out of funding and attention...with the hopes of getting to do other projects.

But it does seem like there was some ignorance since there are other studies that would be directly related to what they are doing that should have stopped them from actually proceeding with the primary portion of the research itself.

For me, that's the red flag that they were just churning out stuff rather than looking for meaningful science that could help make a difference with parenting children.

wait, so you haven't read the actual study?

I might look it up then...

Originally posted by Oliver North
they tried to, but in all studies like this, one of the greatest limiting factors is the ability to get participants. The more strict the controls, the more specifically matched individuals in the control group must be with experimental group. Not to mention, the more invasive the experiment is into the personality and lives of the participants (ie: you are monitoring more things). In some cases, getting 100 couples can be very difficult if you are doing more than getting them to self-report on a questionnaire. Additionally, things like "parenting style" aren't easy to nail down empirically in the first place, so it is hard to know what variables would need to be controlled for.

In this case, if something that contributed to both childhood behaviour and soda consumption wasn't controlled for in the experimental methods, the control group would do nothing to protect the results from being impacted.

I went as far as to say it would be unethical to really do proper controlling for a study like this...just to be that guy. The ugliness of this research probably has more to do with a budget than it does them being dishonest snake-oil salesmen, if we are being honest.

Originally posted by Oliver North
wait, so you haven't read the actual study?

I might look it up then...

Nope. Just the news article. Edit - I had a difficult time putting anything relevant to a real study because of the lack of a citation or researchers' names. Maybe you know a better method of locating the study?

I call bullshit on this one.

As a father, I limit my daughter's daily intake of sugar not because she behaves "more badly", but because of health reasons. Sugar or no sugar, she behaves just as she is expected to.

On certain occasions like birthday parties or carnivals when she eats cake, ice cream, soda, cotton candy, etc, she, of course, is on a sugar rush and acts in a more eccentric manner than she would normally, but the rearing that she has received for her behavior has always been constantly maintained.

Parents who don't monitor or restrict the sugar/caffeine intake of their kids are most definitely going to have hyper active little snot goblins who are prone to more outlandish behavior, but as long as those parents maintain a disciplinary attitude then I don't see why there would be any kind of problem.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I went as far as to say it would be unethical to really do proper controlling for a study like this...just to be that guy. The ugliness of this research probably has more to do with a budget than it does them being dishonest snake-oil salesmen, if we are being honest.

---------------------------------------------------

Nope. Just the news article. Edit - I had a difficult time putting anything relevant to a real study because of the lack of a citation or researchers' names. Maybe you know a better method of locating the study?

http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(13)00736-1/fulltext

I tend to be more concerned about the fact it is self reported more than anything, there is a huge section in the Methods that describe a good number of familial, dietary and socio-economic/dynamic factors that were controlled for, which seem pretty reasonable, and the authors admit straight out that their results might not be generalizable to the public and that there is no established direction of causation (at least they did to Reuters, I'm still looking through the document; http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57598832/soda-may-make-children-more-likely-to-destroy-things-attack-others/). Media sites like what you posted tend to do a terrible job reporting science. The pains most researchers go to in order to not sound biased or pushing an agenda is notable.

Originally posted by Impediment
Parents who don't monitor or restrict the sugar/caffeine intake of their kids are most definitely going to have hyper active little snot goblins who are prone to more outlandish behavior, but as long as those parents maintain a disciplinary attitude then I don't see why there would be any kind of problem.

What if...the consumption of those beverages was ritualized where the consumption is solemnly undertaken? 😆

I think the study wants to find a natural or "raw" behavior for the children while "under the influence." That would be absurdly difficult to control.

lol, so I'm going to post this to support my assertions about the intellectual honesty of the authors. A "Discussion" section in a scientific article is usually the last or second to last section where the thrust of the argument is made. It is where someone would make the strongest and most direct points about the study and their results.

This is the entire discussion section from the article in question, notice how much of it is composed of the author's qualifying the results and aknowledging the limitations of their results. SCIENCE!

Discussion
In this sample of nearly 3000 5-year-old children from cities across the US, 43% consumed at least 1 serving of soda per day, and 4% consumed 4 or more servings daily. Soda consumption was associated with higher aggression subscale scores in a dose-response pattern. These results remained significant after adjusting for: (1) the child's sex; (2) maternal race, education, and marital status; (3) receipt of public assistance; (4) fruit juice consumption; (5) candy/sweets consumption; (6) TV watching; (7) probable maternal depression; (8) maternal reported IPV; and (9) paternal incarceration. We found significant relationships between soda consumption with the overall measure of aggression and with the 3 specific behaviors that we consider most indicative of aggression: destroying things belonging to others, getting into fights, and physically attacking people. Children who consumed the highest quantities of soda also were more likely to exhibit higher scores on the attention problems and withdrawal subscale, both in simple comparisons and when controlling for the aforementioned factors.

In this study, we were not able to characterize the nature of the associations between soda consumption and the problem behaviors. One possibility is a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Soft drinks are highly processed products containing carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sodium benzoate, phosphoric or citric acid, and often caffeine, any of which might affect behavior. Unfortunately, few previous studies have focused on the impact of any of these ingredients on behavior in young children. Caffeine has been linked to insufficient sleep, nervousness and jitters, impulsivity, and risk-taking in children and adolescents, and a study of 9- to 12-year-old children in Brazil found that those with depression were more likely to consume caffeine. Thus, caffeine may explain or contribute to our results. Although sugar often is thought to affect children's behavior, the scientific literature is not definitive. In our study, high fruit juice consumption was associated with lower aggression subscale scores, and high candy/sweets consumption was associated with higher scores. Another possibility is that underlying organic conditions, such as low blood glucose, could lead children both to want soda and to be aggressive or withdrawn. High soda intake may affect blood glucose levels. Unfortunately, we did not have a direct measure of blood glucose.

This study has some limitations. First, owing to the cross-sectional nature of our analysis, we cannot determine causality. However, a yearly time series might not be appropriate if the effect of soda on behavior is short-lived. Second, data on both soft drink consumption and behavior are based on parent reports; furthermore, the size of a soda serving was never defined. This potentially could have introduced some misclassification of exposure, although we have no reason to expect it to be related to the parental reports of child behavior. Third, we have no information on what type of soft drinks were consumed, particularly whether they were regular or diet, sugar-sweetened or artificially sweetened, cola or noncola, and caffeinated or noncaffeinated. Fourth, there are other potential confounders that we cannot adjust for that may be related to both soda consumption and child behavior, such as physical activity, watching violent video games, and other dietary factors. For example, food coloring agents have been examined as a potential negative influence on child behavior. Finally, our sample is not representative of all US 5-year-old children and may have limited generalizability.

These limitations notwithstanding, in this large sample of 5-year-old urban US children, we found strong and consistent relationships between soda consumption and a range of problem behaviors, consistent with the findings of previous studies in adolescents (Hemenway et al, unpublished data, 2013). Children with higher soda consumption had higher aggression subscale scores and were more likely to destroy other people's belongings, get into fights, and physically attack people. These children also were more likely to exhibit withdrawn behavior and attention problems. These effects were present even after accounting for an array of sociodemographic factors and psychosocial stressors. Our study focuses on the association between soda consumption and behavior among young children. Studies in other populations of children and of a longitudinal nature may provide further insight into the relationship between soda consumption and child behavior.

as with many previous instances, this might be more of a thread about how the media is ill-equipped to report on science, or just does a bad, self serving job.

http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(13)00736-1/fulltext#sec3 (discussion section of article)

Originally posted by Impediment
I call bullshit on this one.

just remember though, you are calling bullshit on how the study was reported, not the researchers, who aren't making the claim you are critical of.

If these researchers were trustworthy they would have pursued a respectable profession...like car salesman, for example.

Originally posted by Oliver North
lol, so I'm going to post this to support my assertions about the intellectual honesty of the authors. A "Discussion" section in a scientific article is usually the last or second to last section where the thrust of the argument is made. It is where someone would make the strongest and most direct points about the study and their results.

This is the entire discussion section from the article in question, notice how much of it is composed of the author's qualifying the results and aknowledging the limitations of their results. SCIENCE!

Yup, the authors did a pretty good job of acknowledging the weakness of their work.

[The stuff I typed below was posted to another location so it may seem off like my discussion of linear regression...but it is a copy paste of my own words]

Even the researchers agree with me:

"Numerous factors may affect both soda consumption and problem behavior in children. Poor dietary choices, such as high soda consumption, in young children may be associated with other parenting practices, such as excessive television (TV) viewing and high consumption of other sweets. Furthermore, parenting practices may be associated with social factors known to be associated with child behavior. The relationship between a stressful home environment and child behavior is well known; for example, children who are victims of violent acts or who witness violence have been found to have more externalizing and internalizing behavior problems and more aggression problems, and to show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder."

But it seems they throw this logic out the window:

"In the present study, we investigated the effect of soda consumption on behavior, specifically aggression, attention, and withdrawal behaviors, in a sample of almost 3000 5-year-old children from urban areas across the US. Considering that other dietary factors may be associated with both soda consumption and behavior, we adjusted our analyses for other dietary components as well as for social risk factors that may be associated with parenting practices as well as child behavior."

So did they intend for this to be a bridge study where someone was supposed to fill in the gap to explain why children who drink more 'soda' are "badder"? Hmm?

But the social risk factors were not very well controlled:

"To characterize the home environment, which may be correlated with parenting practices and child behavior, we included 3 social risk factors obtained from the 60-month assessment in our analysis: probable maternal depression, intimate partner violence (IPV), and paternal incarceration."

We should have seen a risk-factor that controlled for health, not necessarily for the limited scope they had on diet. BMI of 95%? They probably meant percentile, not percent? That may not necessarily be indicative of 4 or more sodas...but it most likely is.

And, by the way, they conducted the research like I said they did:
"We used bivariate ANOVA to examine the associations between the aggression, withdrawal, and attention subscales of the CBCL and each level of soda consumption. We then used linear regression models to estimate the association between soda consumption and these child behavior subscales."

Translation: more soda was used to show a correlation between what they determined as "bad behavior."

Then they used these scales to analyze the data. There was significant variation in the data after they modeled it with their controls. This can be a sign that a correlation, if drawn, may be weak (so we don't even need to produce a linear regression coefficient to show this relationship).

But, in the text you quotted, it seems like they say all that stuff about how useless their study is and then they support their conclusion. That doesn't make sense, to me.

"These limitations notwithstanding... we found strong and consistent relationships between soda consumption and a range of problem behaviors..."

Doesn't that seem odd to state?

Originally posted by Oliver North
as with many previous instances, this might be more of a thread about how the media is ill-equipped to report on science, or just does a bad, self serving job.

The news-writer acknowledged the weakness and seemed to have a more in-depth discussion about caffeine than the researchers, actually. In fact, the writer of that article seemed more up front about the weaknesses than the researchers. That last bit of the conclusion statement is what is rustling my jimmies.

Edit - And I would like to note that some researchers use scales to obfuscate their work and distort their results. I am not saying that is what they did but they did use scales to put all of those factors into one lump. How did they weight them? Were they weighted equally? If so, why? If not, why? (I believe they mentioned that the scales were established by another organization and they were well understood making my point pretty much moot).