Junk Food, Junk Behaviour: The Diet-Crime Nexus That Mainstream Criminology Still Ignores, By Mrs. Vera West and Mrs. (Dr) Abigail Knight (Florida)
Back in the early 1980s, as Australia grappled with rising youth delinquency and a one-size-fits-all approach to crime, Professor Ian Brighthope helped orchestrate a quiet revolution: bringing American criminologist Alexander G. Schauss to tour the country. Schauss, armed with his provocative 1981 book Diet, Crime and Delinquency, argued something radical — that the path to prison often starts not in broken homes or poverty alone, but in the gut. Sugar crashes, nutrient voids, toxic additives, and heavy metal poisoning weren't just health issues; they were biochemical triggers for aggression, impulsivity, and outright criminality. Over four decades later, as global incarceration tops 11 million and recidivism hovers at 50%, Schauss's insights — once dismissed as fringe orthomolecular quackery — look prophetic. A wave of studies from 2000 to 2025 confirms: what we feed offenders (or fail to) can dial down violence and recidivism. Yet prisons still serve ultra-processed slop. Why the blind spot? Because admitting diet matters threatens the pharmaceutical-punishment industrial complex.
Schauss's core thesis was biochemical individualism: behaviour isn't just "bad choices" — it's brain chemistry gone awry from poor nutrition. He drew from correctional experiments where swapping junk for whole foods and supplements slashed infractions. In Melbourne lectures, he spotlighted reactive hypoglycaemia, blood sugar plunges after sugar binges that mimic rage or confusion. Offenders, he showed via glucose tolerance tests, often swung wildly, fuelling irritability and poor impulse control. Add in hidden sugars lurking in everything from bread to deli meats, and you get metabolic chaos: spikes that crash into aggression. Modern reviews echo this; high sugar diets link to emotional disorders, cognitive impairments, and stress-driven violence, with low glucose tied to depleted self-control and outright hostility.
Then there's the toxin angle. Schauss hammered heavy metals like lead, which hijack neurotransmission, damage developing brains, and correlate with learning disabilities and aggression. He advocated hair analysis and chelation with zinc or vitamin C, tools Australian clinicians adopted post-tour. Longitudinal data now vindicates him: childhood lead exposure predicts adult criminality, personality disorders, and antisocial traits, with brain imaging showing lasting damage to impulse-control regions. Systematic reviews of dozens of studies find consistent links across development windows, from prenatal to adolescence.
Food additives? Schauss championed the Feingold Diet, stripping artificial colours, flavours, and preservatives to curb hyperactivity. Sceptics scoffed, but meta-analyses show synthetic dyes exacerbate ADHD symptoms in about 8% of kids, with restriction diets yielding small but real behavioural gains. Phosphates from sodas and processed foods worsen mood; allergies to milk or gluten trigger misdiagnosed "psychiatric" outbursts. Even milk overload, pasteurised and enzyme-stripped, emerged as a culprit in Schauss's view.
The proof is in the prisons. U.S. programs Schauss cited, like Tehama County's Feingold-inspired reforms, saw juvenile infractions plummet. Fast-forward: a 2024 systematic review of nutritional interventions in jails found supplements and better meals cut antisocial acts and boosted mental health. Another 2025 scoping review tallied diet upgrades reducing violence; vitamin-mineral trials alone dropped rule-breaking by up to 30%. In the UK, omega-3 and micronutrient pilots mirrored this, curbing aggression. Yet a 2025 narrative review laments: deficiencies in offenders, B vitamins, zinc, magnesium, fuel violence, but most facilities peddle nutrient-poor trays.
This isn't woo, it's nutritional psychiatry, evolved from orthomolecular roots. Brighthope's ACNEM helped seed it in Australia, blending Hoffer and Pfeiffer's work with Schauss's crime focus. Today, it treats mood via gut-brain axis: berries for prevention, multinutrients for symptoms. Deficiencies predict poor mood and criminal acts; repletion prevents them.
Critics cry correlation, not causation, and early sugar studies were mixed. But randomised trials and meta-analyses tilt toward impact, especially in vulnerable groups. Why resist? Big Pharma profits from meds, not meals; criminology clings to sociology over biology. As ultra-processed foods dominate (70% of U.S. calories, similar in Australia), youth mental health craters, and so does civility.
Schauss's Australian legacy endures via Brighthope: nourish the brain, starve the beast. In 2025, with recidivism costing billions, it's time for mandates, screen for deficiencies on intake, swap soda for supplements. Prisons as rehab clinics, not warehouses. Feed people right, and watch crime rates, and societies, heal. As Schauss proved: the health of a nation's diet determines the health of its conscience. Ignore it, and we all pay the price.
https://ianbrighthope.substack.com/p/diet-crime-and-insanity-nutritional
