Cause and effect eg. processed food and children's development

[jugglingjo]

I've just heard on the morning news that a new study suggests that young children with a bad diet including lots of processed food have been found to later develop to have lower IQ's than their peers.

Interesting. However I'm wondering if this could be a classic example of something I've suspected in research about development for some time.

That is, how sure can they or we be that this is really a causal relationship. Have the factors accompanying this poor diet really been taken sufficiently into account.

Things like socioeconomic class, poverty, struggling parents, and the things that may go with this package such as less stimulating experiences, less engaged parents, less communication between parents and children etc. etc.

Scientific research needs to be rigorous, and yet you hardly ever hear mention of the degree of causality that is being suggested. Or how accompanying factors have been considered.

A causal relationship is always just presumed.

At least by the media.

I think there are many things which affect our development more than diet. Though a good diet is very important for our health and well-being.

What do others think ? Especially about the science aspect ?

Only results for 4000 children though, if I read the results section right ?

Thanks for all the links Onimo !

It's all very interesting

I don't have access to the full article, but BBC states that things like social class, duration of BF etc were taken into consideration, but without seeing the methodology (or having enough memory of my degree to make sense of said methodology even if I could see it) I'm not sure.

It does make intuitive sense that better nutrition = better development. I'm not willing to make a control subject of my next baby (whenever they come long) and feed them junk to see if they turn out daft though.

I haven't had the time to look at the full paper for the data on the confounders, number of children studied for each confounder (have they drawn on any of their many other studies?), how all this was then applied to the IQ data, nor if/how partial data was included.

Looked into accessing a free day's viewing of the paper, Onimolap, but a little nervous about signing up for a "free trial subscription"

Would be very interested to read the whole paper though, and come to a more considered judgement about whether my hunch seems right ( at least to my satisfaction )

Perhaps I could check it out via a local library. If they haven't all been closed down yet

It's always interesting to see what the big studies come up with.

The other one going at the moment is the Millennium Child - started on 2000. I wonder if any findings from Avon will be replicated in the Millennium one?

Or maybe write to the researchers and request a copy of their paper. I gather (especially from DH) that this is common practice in research.

Hi onimo

Yes, I'm fascinated by the Millenium Child research and Child of our Time series.

Especially as my two born just either side of the millenium ! (99 and 01)

I thought the same as you jugglingjo when I heard this on the news this morning.

It's that whole lies, damn lies and statistics thing. I see things like this and would love to see the whole research project and see exactly what factors they take into account.

I would be interested to see the difference in IQ of two children born with the same IQ but one is given the healthiest diet possible whilst living with disinterested parents who pay them little attention and offer no stimulation with one who has a poor diet but is encouraged and stimulated.

I would imagine that having healthy diet gives a child the best start to learn and develop but if they are not in the correct enviroment to progress then the effects of the good diet will be limited???

Yes, Bodleian,

In the interests of science I think you'd need at least 4 children

1. Poor diet, poor environmental stimulation

2. Poor diet, good environmental stimulation

3. Good diet, poor environmental stimulation

4. Best of everything !

Or, given they had 4000 children taking part, you could have 1000 children in each group

The Behind the Headlines team at NHS Choices have reviewed this in their usual balanced and sensible way, including reasons why caution is needed in interpreting the associations found.

I heard about this report on the radio yesterday & was shocked because a guy who was talking about it said that: 'essentially, it's garbage in, garbage out'. I think the expression 'garbage in, garbage out' when you're talking about human beings is shocking & unacceptable & goes a long way to describe the simplistic way children are viewed in our society.

I disagree with this kind of research on a matter of principle anyway, as I more generally disagree with the whole concept of IQ. I say this as someone who loves eating & cooking good quality food, but I find these cause-effect ideas about food given to children leading to this or that in the future utterly simplistic & very bad science.

But on a very basic level, I strongly disagree with expressions such as 'garbage in, garbage out' or 'you get what you put in' (sorry, loopynoo). Children are not boxes or machines or our creations. They have their own personalities & they have a possibility to turn their lives around: lots of them do. They would be much better served to be supported (and there's so much need for support, in so many ways) rather than their parents given patronizing advice about good diet etc, hoping to 'boost their IQ'. How utterly beside the point that is.

A lot of those in the second category (Poor diet, good environmental stimulation) would likely be like my DS2, though - his poor diet is due to sensory issues and oral motor difficulties related to his autism, so the results would be skewed, anyhow.

I can't remember which channel it was on, but I did catch a more measured commentary yesterday, which was saying that this demonstrated a small physical effect - stressing the small, as there were other important factors as well.

That struck me as reasonable.

Perhaps they'd done their important MN research first.

"Other important factors" !!

Very interesting

My copy of The Times clearly says "Even adjusting for factors such as mother's education and social class..." so I don't know why OP thinks scientists who carry out such studies know less about "the science aspect" than herself.

"children born with the same IQ"

How exactly do you propose to make newborns take IQ tests?

Jugglingjo: it was the presenter/commentator who said that, not someone connected directly to the study.

Cotedazur: it wasn't I who posted about the babe's IQ, but I read that post as hyperbole intended to undermine. Have I missed something?

Boeotian says "I would be interested to see the difference in IQ of two children born with the same IQ but one is given the healthiest diet possible..." which I took as a serious post.

I can't see how you can possibly determine babies' IQs or even if they have any intelligence in the problem-solving sense of the word (which IQ tests measure) at that point.

Bodleian. Stupid auto-correct.

I don't know how people think a "proper" study would work. It's easy with rats to feed half well and half poorly. It would be ethically dubious to do the same with children, to properly remove confounding factors!

Am a bit (raised eyebrow) at CoteDAzur's post.

Science is all about asking questions.

So is life ! So is Mumsnet

I have never claimed to know more about this research than those who carried it out.

I'm just raising some perfectly reasonable scientific questions about it's conclusions.

As 1) A mother
2) An early years practitioner
3) A science graduate (from same University that carried out this research)

I feel it is reasonable of me to discuss this research and it's conclusions with other mothers and interested individuals on Mumsnet.

Of course you are also entitled to your opinion, and you may disagree, either with the existence or the content, of my comments.

My main query is whether these "other factors" have in fact been sufficiently adjusted for.

If they have then I'd like someone to reassure and convince me of the fact.

Otherwise I reserve the right to a healthy scientific scepticism.

I suppose we could email a link to this thread to the poc for the study and invite her to comment?

JugglingJo: I was just wondering why you were so sceptical. Is it because you think there cannot be such a link? Or is the concern more with how the press have seized on it, and ran stories which carried more weight than this research can necessarily bear?

If you are going to be skeptical, it helps to first read the article properly. If you had, you would see that they have indeed taken into account other factors that have obvious effects on a child's IQ such as mother's education and socioeconomic status, and you would not be asking most of the questions in your OP.

Being entitled to your own opinion has nothing to with this.

Hi Onimo !

I did email the key researcher and let her know about our comments. But I'm not very confident at doing links and such like.

As for my scepticism .. It didn't start of as being specifically to do with this research. It's just when I heard about it on the radio I thought "Here we go again. More research on children's development which probably hasn't taken into account all the accompanying (or confounding) factors.

CoteDAzur quotes the Times as saying "Even adjusting for factors such as mother's education and social class ..."

"Even adjusting .." that makes me laugh !
It would be rather important with social research !

And were those the only two confounding factors they could think of ?

Here's a few more to consider ...

1. Mental health
2. Social support of family
3. Degree of environmental stimulation for child
4. Quality of parental communication
5. Quantity (and quality) of child's social and educational interaction outside the home.

Give me a research grant and a bit more time and I'll come up with a few dozen for you !

Thanks - unless she says the answer is private, will you share?

I come at this from a different POV: I see it as plausible, but only one small difference, which may be outweighed by the other potential differences. I also see the possibility of a "perfect storm" of generally negative indicators coming together, and that could make a huge difference to a child's life and prospects. Most children would get a mixture of plusses snaps minuses. And we'd all disbelieve someone who claimed to do everything perfectly....

Actually, that's put another thought into my head. I wonder how much of then evidence is retrospective personal recall of diet etc? Because IIRC, that's not considered hugely reliable.