New Research Shows Impact of Healthy Diet on Academic Performance

by Rochelle Davis, HSC Founding Executive Director

It is always nice to see when scientific studies document what common sense and mother’s experience tells us.  A new study in the Journal of School Health shows that children with healthy diets perform better in school than children with unhealthy diets. 

In this study, researchers surveyed around 5,000 Canadian fifth-graders and their parents. They found that students with an increased fruit and vegetable intake and less caloric  intake from fat were less likely to fail a literacy assessment.

“We demonstrated that above and beyond socioeconomic factors, diet quality is important to academic performance,” the authors concluded. “These findings support the broader implementation and investment in effective school nutrition programs that have the potential to improve student’s diet quality, academic performance, and, over the long term, their health.” 

With these research results in hand, we hope that policymakers and school administrators will incorporate a focus on the importance of good nutrition into their decision-making.