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Dietary habits are associated with school performance in adolescents
Published works point to the links between dietary patterns and poor academic performance, however, a handful of publications investigated this relationship after accounting for confounders. In this study by Kim et al. (2016), the authors investigated the frequency of consuming certain dietary items (namely, soft drinks, fruits, fast food, instant noodles, vegetables, milk, and confections) in relation to having regular meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), in a sample of 359,264 participants of the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBWS, 2009-2013, 12-18 years of age). For a period of 7 days, the participants were examined to determine their dietary habits, obesity levels, and physical activity, in addition to accounting for their area of residence, stress level, economics, parental education, and subjective determinants of health. The authors observed that frequently having breakfast, fruits, vegetables, and milk was linked to substantially higher levels of academic performance in schools. On the other hand, consuming soft drinks, fast food, instant noodles and confections negatively impacted academic performance. Based on these results, which coincided with previously published evidence on the relationship between diet and academic performance in schools, the authors conclude that having breakfast and eating fruits and milk enhances school performance, and that eating instant noodles, confections and fast food negatively impacts it. [NPID: Academic achievement, adolescents, students, school, breakfast, dietary behavior, nutritional requirements]
Year: 2016
