Just Wondering: Did Sugary Foods Such As Twinkies Play An Unwitting Role in the Tragic Virginia Tech Shootings?

Clearly, the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech are weighing heavily on people’s minds this week. So incredibly tragic and agonizingly painful. My heart goes out to those poor families of those 32 students who unnecessarily died.

Of course, I could be completely off base here, but I just can’t help but wonder: What kinds of foods was this hostile, angry, distraught Cho Seung Hui eating on a regular basis before he mercilessly gunned down innocent fellow students?

I certainly mean no disrespect, but this subject is gnawing at me. Think about it. Students at colleges typically eat lots of sugary cereals, as well as chips, candies and refined carbs. What’s more, they often chug down lots of soda.

If you think this is all a stretch, you should know that extensive research shows a link between consuming sugary junk foods and violence or criminal behavior.

With sadness in my heart, I find myself speculating: Was this evidently mentally unhinged Hui hooked on sugary foods such as Twinkies as was former San Francisco supervisor Dan White, who back in 1978 assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk?

In fact, as both Wikipedia and Snopes.com tells us, the junk-food dependent White received a controversial verdict, which led to the coining of the often-derided and much-misunderstood "twinkie defense." (White was ultimately convicted of manslaughter rather than of murder.)

Many in the legal community think that citing excessive sugar consumption as a potential reason for violent behavior is absolute bunk. In fact, the phrase "Twinkie defense," according to Snopes.com "came to represent the efforts of criminals to avoid responsibility for their actions by claiming that some external force beyond their control had caused them to act the way they had, and it arose from the successful defense mounted by White’s legal team that White’s eating of Twinkies and other sugar-laden junk foods had diminished his mental capacity."

Anyhow, I’m not saying that there’s a connection here to the Virginia Tech shootings, but I feel that it’s an angle worth exploring. If it turns out that Hui was eating nutrient-deprived foods, we could get an even clearer glimpse into his befuddled mind.

You see, most people do not know that a poor diet could, in fact, play a role in criminal behavior. But it does, as I point out in my book SUGAR SHOCK! If you don’t believe me, check out Chapter 11, which is entitled, "Sweets Can Sour Your Moods."

For instance, in my book, I include quotes from psychologist Alex Schauss, Ph.D., who has conducted nuemerous studies on the relationship between crime, sugar and delinquent behavior. He even penned the once-controversial book, Diet, Crime and Delinquency.

For SUGAR SHOCK!, I also talked with former Ohio probation officer Barbara Reed Stitt, Ph.D. The author of Food and Behavior used to work with bitter, depressed, angry deliquents, who lived on nutrient-lacking foods such as donuts, pastries, white breads, pasta, canned goods, candy, gallons of coffee and other junk foods.

Both Dr. Schauss and Dr. Stitt found that when aggressive offenders quit eating these culprit-carb foods, , their behavior completely changed. For instance, Dr. Stitt — who worked with probationers on a judge’s order — banned sugar, white-flour products, chemical additives, caffeine, and alcohol from their diets. Amazingly, 80 percent of the probationers she helped went on to become "productive members of society," she told me.

Meanwhile, I also learned about further research from Finland, which revealed that the blood sugar levels of violent offenders and aggressive students tended to drop quickly after eating carbohydrates.

And further research in the Amerian Journal of Psychiatry showed that chidlren with nutritional deficiencies become more aggressive as they grow older.

And the research I cited is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Again, please bear in mind that I’m not drawing any conclusions here. I’m just curious. Clearly, Hui had major psychological problems, which an English teacher even observed as early as a couple of years ago.

But I’d like to suggest that reporters covering this Virginia Tech nightmare start asking some questions about his diet, too. 

By the way, I invite you to read my other post, in which I give you a link to a fascinating column my colleague Mike Adams wrote, in which he wondered if antidepressants may have had a role in this horrific massacre.