Nutrition vs Prison Bait

There has been a lot of press recently about how changing a child’s diet can actually reduce their hyper activity. Cut out the sugar in little Robert’s food and his desire to burn his parents’ house down with them peacefully sleeping inside, diminishes slightly. But how did all this research get started? Who came up with the initial connection? Jamie Oliver and his school dinners? Nope, not quite.

Apparently this kind of research has been going on in the states since the 1970’s. Scientists observed that the amount of sugar we eat has increased significantly due to the amount of processed foods in our diet. This observation is all well and good but to prove it’s correct, scientists had to test it out. And who better than inmates in prison who are a) hard ass, out of control and the definition of anti-social “hyper” people and b) obliged to do as they are told or be beaten!

So how fantastic is this? The scientists divided the inmates into two groups, giving one group supplements and the other placebos. Only the researchers knew about the experiment. No one else, not the guards, nor the inmates were clued into what was taking place. But I bet someone must have started to suspect something was up when Buba started cross-stitching and Snake began inviting everyone over to his cell for tea and scones.

Personally, I would be really cheesed off if I were one of these inmates. Imagine being one of the biggest hard asses at that prison. Everyone feared you. You controlled everything from who got what drugs to how often the quiet pansy boy got a full nights rest. Then a couple of scientists come along with an ‘idea’ and BAM, you’re discussing patterns and wool quality with the prison librarian!

Ok, so the changes were not that drastic but I’d still be upset about having someone mess with my head.

Anyway, the scientists were right about their observations hence the media feast and Jamie Oliver milking all the publicity he can get. The most worrying part of this research is that apparently we are what we eat and the enormous amounts of sugary and processed foods we ingest are not only affecting how we behave but it’s also affecting our perception and insight of the world around us. This means “that a nutritionally deprived person may not have the mental faculties to differentiate between right or wrong, or appropriate and inappropriate behaviour”. So in a nutshell, if we as a society do not change our appetite for fast and sugary foods, we will continue spiralling downhill until not only will we all be horribly obese, we will continuously make fat jokes at the wrong times with inappropriate gestures.