"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." We know it but what do we do about it?
Just as every dollar invested in quality early childhood care and education saves seven tax dollars by increasing the likelihood that children will be literate, employed, and enrolled in post-secondary education, and less likely to be school dropouts, dependent on welfare, or arrested for criminal activity or delinquency (Children's Defense Fund 2002 Booklet, page xii), so too, as you will see in this article, would investing in good nutrition have an huge return on our investment.

One caveat: you already know that the problem is bigger than individual nutrients. The study described below could be used by Big Junk Food as an excuse to add zinc, iron, B vitamins and some soy protein to, say, Snickers bars and advertise them as preventing crime!

Genuine reform will be implemented in five Sacramento City Unified schools this fall. Instead of "enriched" junk food, the children will receive real veggies (in salads or steamed) and whole grain breads that contain omega-3-rich flax meal. Their meals won't contain harmful corn syrup or trans fats. There will be time-tested social studies and nutrition curricula to introduce students to their new menus, which will be derived from world cuisines that have supported healthy, happy populations for centuries.

Please pass the American Journal of Psychiatry summary along to any police chiefs, district attorneys, mayors, state attorney generals, and governors you know. Maybe the torrent of red ink in state and local government will make them more interested in innovative ways to save money with prevention.

Why Childhood Malnutrition Matters to Everyone
Establishing a link between childhood malnutrition and later behavioral problems requires observation of malnourished children over many years. The children of Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa, helped Liu et al demonstrate that malnutrition at age 3 predisposes children to outward-directed behavior problems, e.g., hyperactivity and aggression, at ages 8, 11, and 17.

The effect of malnutrition was confirmed by the dose-response relationships at ages 8 and 17: a higher number of malnutrition indicators at age 3 was related to more problem behavior at ages 8 and 17.

A second key finding was that malnutrition and externalizing behavior were connected through low IQ. Malnutrition may therefore affect later behavior by impairing brain development.

Given that externalizing behavior problems are harbingers of violence, improving nutrition for at-risk children may be a practical, easy way to lessen violent crime. Am J Psychiatry 161:A62, November 2004

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/10773.html
Nutrition Key to Aggressive Behavior
11/16/04 By Usha Sutliff

Early malnutrition may lead to low IQ and later antisocial behavior, says a new USC (University of Southern California) study. The work is an important first step in identifying early risk factors for adult violence and developing programs to prevent it.

Malnutrition in the first few years of life leads to antisocial and aggressive behavior throughout childhood and late adolescence, according to a new USC study.

"These are the first findings to show that malnutrition in the early postnatal years is associated with behavior problems through age 17," said Jianghong Liu, a postdoctoral fellow with USC's Social Science Research Institute and the lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry's November issue.

"Identifying the early risk factors for this behavior in childhood and adolescence is an important first step for developing successful prevention programs for adult violence," she said.

For 14 years, researchers followed the nutritional, behavioral and cognitive development of more than 1,000 children who lived on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.

The sample of boys and girls included children with Indian, Creole, Chinese, English and French ethnicities.

Researchers assessed their nutrition at age 3, looking for four indicators in particular:
angular stomatitis, or cracking in the lips and corners of the mouth that is caused by a deficiency of the B vitamin riboflavin; hair dyspigmentation, a condition - found primarily in tropical regions - where children's hair takes on a reddish-orange color due to protein deficiency; sparse, thin hair created by a deficiency in protein, zinc and iron; and anemia, which reflects iron deficiency.

The children's intelligence level and cognitive ability were also tested, and social workers visited their homes to come up with a so-called adversity score that summarized factors such as the income, occupation, health, age and education levels of their parents and their overall living conditions.

At ages 8, 11 and 17 years, the researchers looked at how the children were behaving in school and at home.

At age 8, teachers gave feedback about whether the subjects were acting out in school with behavior ranging from irritability to picking fights with other children.

At age 11, the feedback came from parents who told researchers about whether their children lied, cheated, got into fights, bullied others, destroyed property or used obscene language.

At age 17, both parents and teachers reported on antisocial behavior such as stealing, drug use, destroying property or being deliberately cruel to others.

Over time, a link became evident between malnourishment and antisocial or aggressive behavior, said Adrian Raine, a coauthor of the study and holder of the Robert Grandford Wright Professorship in Psychology in USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Compared to those in the control group - the group that did not suffer from nutritional deficiencies - malnourished children showed a 41 percent increase in aggression at age 8, a 10 percent increase in aggression and delinquency at age 11 and a 51 percent increase in violent and antisocial behavior at age 17.

While social class did not play a significant factor in behavior, intelligence level did, Raine said.

"Poor nutrition, characterized by zinc, iron, vitamin B and protein deficiencies, leads to low IQ, which leads to later antisocial behavior," he said. "These are all nutrients linked to brain development."

Researchers also found that the more indicators of malnutrition there were, the greater the antisocial behavior.

The findings have implications for the United States, Raine said, where 7 percent of toddlers suffer from iron deficiency, a number that jumps to between 9 percent and 16 percent in adolescent and female groups.

Iron deficiency is between 19 percent and 22 percent in black and Mexican American females, he said.

"This is a problem in America. It's not just a problem in the far-away Indian Ocean," Raine said. "If it's causal, there's an intervention implication there. At a societal level, should parents be thinking more about what kids are eating?"

The study also casts antisocial behavior in a light where it may be preventable.

"There's more to antisocial behavior than nutrition, but we argue that it is an important missing link," Raine said. "Biology is not destiny. We can change the biological disposition to antisocial and aggressive behavior."

The other authors were Sarnoff A. Mednick, a professor of psychology in USC College and director of the USC Social Science Research Institute, and Peter H. Venables, a professor of psychology at the University of York, England. Nutrition Key to Aggressive Behavior