It is evidently not just dentists who benefit from children eating too much candy. The prison system, too, apparently, gets a boost from bon-bons.

Just so you know, I have long suspected that the candy industry and world Dentistry are in cahoots. Otherwise, how do we explain the long-standing dental tradition of handing out lollipops on the way out of the office?

That practice has always struck me as similar to prisons handing out automatic weapons to inmates as they’re released.

“OK, Lefty, here’s your $200 and your uzi, see you in about a month.”

Anyway, a new study suggests the world’s prisons are filled with adults who overindulged in sweets as youngsters.

The Associated Press reports that British experts studied more than 17,000 children born in 1970 for about 40 years, and found that of the ones who ate sweets daily at age 10, 69 percent were arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34. Of those who didn’t have any violent clashes, 42 percent ate sweets daily, the story notes.

Let’s see…

These kids were born in 1970, meaning their parents were children of the 60’s — love-ins, flower power and the liberal use of certain recreational drugs comes to mind.

I wonder if there’s any substance stronger than a Mars Bar that might have impacted these kids’ psyches.

Probably not.

Besides, this was done in England, so maybe the parents or the kids themselves are soccer fans, which would help explain everything.
Anyway, the researchers said the situation is related to kids’ decision-making, which is related to parents who consistently bribe their kids with sweets.

They suggest that bribing your kid into good behavior with goodies may be doing harm by preventing them from learning how to delay gratification. This, they say, leads to impulsive behavior and violence.

According to the story, even after researchers controlled for variables like different parenting skills and social and economic backgrounds, a significant link was noted between childhood sweets consumption and violent behavior in adulthood.

Previous studies have found better nutrition leads to better behavior, for everyone, according to the story.

Though careful to note the results were “not strong enough to recommend parents stop giving their children candies and chocolates,” (and thus prevent a class action lawsuit by candymakers) it seems to me that as a society, we might want to start bribing our children with something else, like TV, movies or video games.

Wait, aren’t there studies suggesting that the hair-raising violence on TV and in movies and video games may manifest in children as violent behavior. Maybe that’s not such a great idea, either.

There must be something benign with which we can bribe our children into descent behavior…

I know threats seemed to work fairly consistently for my kids.

Thank goodness my boys are grown now and can be bribed with stuff like money that won’t cause permanent emotional damage.

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