Nutrition and Cognitive Learning

Paper Summary:

This paper aims to address and analyze the links between nutrition and cognition, as well as the problems associated with poor nutrition. It examines how good nutrition can affect cognitive learning, as well as improve problem-solving skills, test scores and school attendance rates, in elementary school children. It is hoped that the suggestions provided by this paper will ease the transition to elementary school, improve progression through elementary grades and raise school performance, all of which are expected to increase lifetime achievements.

From the Paper:

"In the area of cognitive development, "when there isn't enough food (or poor nutrition), the body has to make a decision about how to invest the limited foodstuffs available. Survival comes first. Growth comes second. In this nutritional triage, the body seems obliged to rank learning last. Better to be stupid and alive than smart and dead (Sagan and Druyan, 1994). Poor nutrition is found in children of all socioeconomic conditions. Once believed to be mainly a problem for poor children, today poor nutrition has extended to all social and economic classes, due to the increase in fast food and hands-off parenting styles."

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