A healthy diet filled with high intakes of nutrient rich foods could make kids smarter.
Research just published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health says a poor diet high in fat, sugar and processed foods in early childhood may be associated with lower IQ's later.
The new study used the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which collected data on children's diet reported by parents in food-frequency questionnaires at ages 3, 4, 7 and 8.5. Dietary patterns were identified using principal-components analysis and scores computed at each age. IQ was assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at 8.5 years. Complete data was available for 3966 children.
Scientists concluded:
The "processed" (high fat and sugar content) pattern of diet at 3 years of age was negatively associated with IQ assessed at 8.5 years of age. A 1 SD increase in dietary pattern score was associated with a 1.67 point decrease in IQ (95 percent CI −2.34 to −1.00; p<0.0001).
The "health-conscious" (salad, rice, pasta, fish, fruit) pattern at 8.5 years was positively associated with IQ: a 1 SD increase in pattern score led to a 1.20 point increase in IQ (95 percent CI 0.52 to 1.88; p=0.001).
The population-based cohort study was done by Kate Northstone, Carol Joinson, and Pauline Emmett, of the School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, Andy Ness of the Department of Oral and Dental Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK and Tomáš Paus of the Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
- obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008.
- obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0 percent to 18.1 percent in 2008.
Care New England says 25 percent of Rhode Island children are overweight or obese.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced they are raising the nutrition standards for National School Lunch and School Breakfast meal programs for the first time in fifteen years, making critical changes to school meals this fall to help improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs everyday.
The proposed changes to school meal standards would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals. The recommendations are based on the October 2009 report by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (IOM), School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children. Schools would also be required to limit the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories, and trans fats in meals.
In Rhode Island, health officials say one in five children start kindergarten being overweight. Less than half (42%) of youths in those grades are meeting current physical activity recommendations. Less than one in five (19%) of youths eat fruits and vegetables five or more times per day. More than a quarter (27%) of youths watch three or more hours of TV per day.
Recently, one of the largest new weight studies completed says you don't have to be obese to raise your risk of premature death - being just overweight can cause problems as well.
New England Journal of Medicine study involved 1.5 million people and concluded healthy white adults who were overweight were 13 percent more likely to die than those whose weight was in an ideal range.
Right now two-thirds of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese according to the CDC.
Overweight begins at a body mass index measurement of 25, obese at 30 and morbidly obese at 40.
Globally kids are packing on the pounds.
The study authors used data from 450 surveys representing 144 countries.
Additional Resources:
Click here to see a comparison of the before and after school lunch menu changes
Do you know your BMI? Try this calculator.
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Comments
How was this normalized for parental DNA/genetics involved seeing that economic and other factors have to play a role in the parents access to different food choices for the child and those parents relying on McDonalds to feed their kids probably aren't the brightest bulbs in the first place...etc.
Also, seems like score improvements of 1.2 and decreases of -1.67 points are hardly earth-shattering results in an IQ test score over a sample of 4000 people. Statistically significant doesn't really mean much with nominal average increases shown here.
There is is a mismatch between the diet described in the study and the diet described in tHe new government guidelines: Fish is mentioned in the study and the new government guidelines as described in this article make no mention of fish or any other animal based protein. Why the bias against protein?
I am not entirely convinced that diet is a factor in a child's intelligence. Could analysis and statistics support this claim, absolutely! However, were class and education a factor in this study? It is difficult for working families to have proper support to afford higher end non processed foods, have time to cook a healthy meal, and educate their children on nutrition. These are also the same families that have their children in school districts that do not have the proper programs to educate their children on the same level as an affluent neighborhood.
However, one thing all families could do is make sure their family is active and you can find it free in a lot of places. For example, Exercise TV has free kid and family friendly workouts on their website and on On Demand.
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