Nutritional Criminology: Why the Emerging Research on Ultra-Processed Food Matters to Health and Justice

Abstract

There is mounting concern over the potential harms associated with ultra-processed foods, including poor mental health and antisocial behavior. Cutting-edge research provides an enhanced understanding of biophysiological mechanisms, including microbiome pathways, and invites a historical reexamination of earlier work that investigated the relationship between nutrition and criminal behavior. Here, in this perspective article, we explore how this emergent research casts new light and greater significance on previous key observations. Despite expanding interest in the field dubbed ‘nutritional psychiatry’, there has been relatively little attention paid to its relevancy within criminology and the criminal justice system. Since public health practitioners, allied mental health professionals, and policymakers play key roles throughout criminal justice systems, a holistic perspective on both historical and emergent research is critical. While there are many questions to be resolved, the available evidence suggests that nutrition might be an underappreciated factor in prevention and treatment along the criminal justice spectrum. The intersection of nutrition and biopsychosocial health requires transdisciplinary discussions of power structures, industry influence, and marketing issues associated with widespread food and social inequalities. Some of these discussions are already occurring under the banner of ‘food crime’. Given the vast societal implications, it is our contention that the subject of nutrition in the multidisciplinary field of criminology—referred to here as nutritional criminology—deserves increased scrutiny. Through combining historical findings and cutting-edge research, we aim to increase awareness of this topic among the broad readership of the journal, with the hopes of generating new hypotheses and collaborations.

Homicide or Happiness: Did Folate Fortification and Public Health Campaigns Influence Homicide Rates and the Great American Crime Decline?

“…However, the idea that a relatively sudden and significant rise in a blood chemical is without any neurobehavioral consequence (beyond those associated with neural tube defects) seems to be the more implausible consideration. At this stage, controlled intervention trials using folic acid, and other nutrients involved in folate metabolism, seem overdue [8,9].…”

“…The idea that nutrients such as folic acid could influence brain and behavior was certainly ongoing when the fields of nutritional neuroscience and nutritional psychiatry emerged in the 1980s, yet were only at the periphery of criminology and the criminal justice system. It is only with advances in research related to nutritional criminology and food crime [8,9] that it is possible to retrospectively examine cases and epidemiological trends that previously escaped explanatory (biological) discourse within the realm of criminal justice [32]. We now turn our attention toward such evidence, including preclinical work, population studies, and mechanistic pathways.…”

“…Research in the area of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has helped to shed light on the role of nutrients and dietary patterns in impulsivity [7]. As a result, there is increased scrutiny of the intersection between nutrition and the criminal justice system, in terms of both treatment and prevention [8,9]. For example, omega-3 fatty acids, or a lack thereof, have been linked to impulsivity, suicide by violent means, and national homicide rates [10].…”

Dismantling the myth of “all foods fit” in eating disorder treatment

“…In fact, there are studies currently examining flexible, calorically robust, and weight-neutral dietary interventions for patients with FA [53]. Ultraprocessed foods (UPFs), which are now identified as NOVA-4 in the NOVA classification system [54], have been associated with a host of adverse health effects and increased mortality [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. The NOVA classification system categorizes foods according to their degree of processing, and the NOVA-4 group includes foods with the highest degree of processing.…”

“…In addition to having high concentrations of refined sugars and oils, UPFs also contain potentially obesogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals that have been added (or neo-formed during high heat processes) to foods and food packaging by the food industry for the last several decades [95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106]. Many have called out the crisis in food quality as a major public health problem [65,107], and its contribution to the ED field is substantial, albeit mostly unrecognized. Up to 80% of food advertising promotes UPF and drink products, with food companies often targeting communities of color [108].…”