The Effect of Nutrition on Delinquency and Criminal Behavior Looking at the Teachings of Islam

In addition to providing physical health, nutrition plays a very important role in the prevention and management of many kinds of behavioral, learning, and mood disorders, which affect the developmental conditions of children and adolescents’ lives, their behavior in school, the process of different stages of education, and the behavior and moods of adults in various aspects of their lives—from home to the workplace and society. Among the most important aspects of human behavioral disorders are antisocial behaviors, deviation, and delinquency. The close relationship between nutrition and eating habits with various aspects of human behavior and mental states has brought the quality of nutrition forward as one of the most important approaches to combating antisocial behaviors and crimes. Nutritional interventions in people prone to violence and delinquency, especially children, are among the most effective solutions to this problem in order to prevent and reduce crime rates. The failure of traditional preventive approaches, along with the dramatic changes in nutritional habits of different communities over the past few decades and the increasing tendency toward irritating and harmful foods, illustrates the necessity and urgency of implementing these interventions. The present article examines the relationship between nutrition and human behavior—especially deviation and delinquency—and the ways of utilizing nutritional interventions, by using the results of research and the teachings of Islam in this respect. It finally asserts that considering people’s nutrition as an effective factor in committing crime and its prevention is necessary from the perspective of micro and macro criminology and must be the subject of planning and legislation.