Eating Ice Cream for Breakfast Makes You Smarter

Question

According to the Telegraph story, subjects were told to eat ice cream upon first awakening, and then had their mental acuity tested by performing tasks on a computer. Those who'd eaten ice cream performed better and had faster reaction times, researchers found.

Comments

This claim does appear to be true. After reading both the linked article, and reading a similar article by CBS News, it seems to be true that eating icecream in the morning improves reaction times and boosts mental performance. In the study they repeated the experiment with cold water instead of icecream. They found that while cold water did boost mental performance, it was not as much as the icecream had. However, this claim left out a very important part of the article. The Inc. article actually goes on to say that eating icecream for breakfast is a "really bad idea." In the long run sugar will "increase your risk of depression, reduce your brain function, and make you more susceptible to Alzheimer's." So while icecream does temporarily boost your mental performance in the morning, this does not mean that you should in fact do this. It will decrease your mental performance in the long run. Just eat healthy in the morning. It will increase your mental performance over time.

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/does-eating-ice-cream-for-breakfast-make-you-smarter-maybe-but-dont-make-a-habit.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Telegraph%20story,faster%20reaction%20times%2C%20researchers%20found.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/study-ice-cream-for-breakfast-boosts-brain-performance/

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It's valuable that you researched the claim and read another similar article by CBS News to see if the claim was supported by other journalists. In addition, you acknowledged the elaboration in the article to show a more balanced portrayal of the study. I feel like it would be helpful to read the actual study that prompted the article, as this would give a more thorough look into the research methods, full conclusions, and possible shortcomings of the study.

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Your fact-check on the ice cream study was fascinating, especially the part about improved reaction times. However, I think it's important to consider the potential placebo effect. Were the subjects aware of the supposed benefits of ice cream before the test? This awareness could have influenced their performance. Additionally, it would be helpful to know if the study compared ice cream to other breakfast foods to rule out the possibility that any food might have a similar effect.

Answer 1

The claim itself is intriguing and almost believable in the introduction to the article by Inc.com. However, almost immediately after the initial paragraph, the article warns against its own claim, stating that "eating sweets for breakfast is the last thing you should do." It uses evidence from a different article by the same site that explains why sugar is bad for you (link). This article is based off a different one by Telegraph that took direction from a study conducted by a Japanese professor Tokyo's Kyorin University. The article explains that the original study merely shows that it's not really ice cream that increased brain activity in the morning, but simply eating something after waking up, as suggested by nutritional psychologist Katie Barfoot. 

As shown in the article, the claim that ice cream makes you smarter is undeniably false, and it is strongly suggested to avoid such sugars as it's harmful to health in the long run.