Put. Down. The. Pepsi. That's what good old Science is telling teenagers to do, after a new study announced a "clear link" between drinking soda and acting violently.
When high schoolers in inner-city Boston were polled on their dietary and behavioral habits, Harvard researcher David Hemenway discovered that teens who drink more than five cans of soda a week are nine to 15 percent more likely to engage in an aggressive act. Kids who drank around 14 cans a week had a 43 percent likelihood of carrying a gun or knife, 27 percent had been violent toward a partner, and close to 60 percent had been violent toward their peers. "It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship was," said Hemenway, though he did caution that more research would need to be done to fully confirm whether chugging Faygo really makes kids slash-happy.
The study calls to mind the 1979 "Twinkie Defense," in which Dan White's lawyer successfully argued that his client suffered a "diminished capacity for rational thought" at the time of killing Harvey Milk due to binging on junk food. And all this time, we just though soda made you fat!
