I did.
I heard about it when Linda Bacon from HAES tweeted a link to a press release about it multiple times, calling it "Myth Busting". Knowing that Linda knows how to critically appraise a journal article, I figured it'd be worth reading the actual study.
I was wrong.
The study looked at one solitary day's 24hr. dietary recall collected from 11,182 children between the ages of 2-18 years of age, and then compared candy intake to overweight and obesity status in those same children.
Now dietary recall is known to be fraught with error, especially when it comes to less than healthy foods.
So is there evidence of error here?
Well according to their results, only 30% of children have candy on a daily basis, where candy means a sugar candy or chocolate (more on that in a bit).
That sure sounds like an awfully small number.
And of the kids who actually admitted eating candy, how much were they found to be eating?
One chocolate bar worth for teens aged 14-18 and about 2/3 of a chocolate bar worth for kids aged 2-13.
That sounds like an awfully small number too.
Now maybe kids really don't eat candy any more. Maybe the world's changed more than I've envisioned and only 3 out of 10 children eat candy daily, and do so in rather tempered amounts. And maybe candy's not only not bad for you, but it's good for you, specifically good for you in regard to weight in that this study found that the kids who reported eating candy, were 22 to 26 percent less likely to be overweight or obese!
Of course the other possibility is that it's just an awful study that doesn't fairly lend itself to any conclusion whatsoever (pro or con).
And while we're at the awful study angle, given that this is a study where the authors' conclusion and the public relations spin is that candy's not bad for you, and apparently is protective against overweight and obesity, I think it's probably also worth asking what wasn't counted as candy?
Cookies, freezies, ice-cream, pudding, fruit roll ups, cake, pie, etc. Just chocolate candy and sugar candy. So what else wouldn't fit? Any other junk food - chips, pretzels etc.
Sigh.
The only conclusion I'm able to fairly draw from this study is that those of us who have any degree of Twitter influence, we really have to hold ourselves to a higher standard of retweeting. It's always tempting to retweet a press release or a blog post about a study that fits within our own confirmation biases, but before we do, we should really feel obligated to first read the actual study and evaluate it just as critically as we would those studies that don't fit neatly within our personal narratives.
E. O'Neil, C., L. Fulgoni Iii, V., & A. Nicklas, T. (2011). Association of candy consumption with body weight measures, other health risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and diet quality in US children and adolescents: NHANES 1999–2004 Food & Nutrition Research, 55 DOI: 10.3402/fnr.v55i0.5794
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I have to wonder why they thought a two or four year old could give them an accurate 24 hour recall of what they ate!
ReplyDeleteFor the wee ones' recalls, they asked their parents.
ReplyDeleteThe result probably say more about the reliability of self reporting that they do about true consumption.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the fine work. No SGO6 HB Attitude.
Geez, before you know if candy will be added to Canada's food guide...come on!! Just b/c a kids is thin does not necessarily mean they are healthy...if they are eating mainly sugar they're constantly on a sugar high and become opposed to eating foods with a lower glycemic index.
ReplyDeleteI would also wonder if the overweight and obese kids (or their parents) underreported their chocolate and candy consumption more than the slimmer kids did.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought is that even if this turned out be true (and frankly, the data is suspect to me), it doesn't show that eating candy makes you thin. On the contrary, kids who are overweight or obese are probably more likely to a) be on a diet and thus deliberately avoiding candy or b) lie or otherwise give less accurate reporting on candy consumption because they know they're not supposed to be eating candy. (No one is more painfully aware of the unhealthiness of candy than people who are struggling to lose weight. They tend to be told it on a regular basis by everyone around them, as if they might not have realized it yet.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, one day's consumption tells you absolutely nothing about causation nor provide useful advice.
I took a quick peek at the conflicts of interest & funding, "Partial
ReplyDeletesupport was also received from the National Confectioners
Association."
I wouldn't be surprised if kids who occasionally ate candy were indeed generally healthier. If you are young and reasonably active you can almost certainly fit some candy into your diet without a detrimental effect on overall health. How much candy this equates to is obviously a complex subject with too many variables to bother exploring here. Perhaps kids who are allowed to have candy (in moderation) have a healthier relationship with food and were more inclined to see it as an occasional treat as opposed to something that is either "forbidden" or a staple in their diet.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if your child enjoys eating well and has no particular desire to gorge on candy then I doubt that the addition of concentrated bits of sugar and fat into their diet would offer any 'protective effects' as one might be led to conclude after reading the piece.
The study does sound pretty useless, but just personally, I ate a LOT of candy as a child. I had a big sweet tooth (still do) and I ate a lot of candy, everyday, and added tons of sugar to whatever I could, without much parental supervision. And I was a thin child. I am an overweight adult though, so I don't think my thinness as a child was just genetics. It is hard for me to understand why there are so many overweight kids now when there weren't so many before, because it seems there were plenty of us eating the wrong foods then (about 20-25 yrs. ago).
ReplyDeleteIf you ask around, I'm sure a lot of adults who are not and have never been obese will admit to eating a lot of candy as children. When my brother was a teenager he tried to lose weight by giving up sweets, and it made very little difference. Then he gave up ketchup, apple juice, and soda and he started dropping pounds immediately. The problem as I see it is not the sugar we know about and can keep in moderation, but the sugar in every single food we eat (bread, sauces, even pickles!) that is the problem. Candy has been around for a while; it's not fair to blame it for the rise in obesity, but I also have a hard time believing it's a cure.
ReplyDelete