The main result of
the study was that eating a lot of junk food at age three was associated with
slower progress later in primary school. An extra finding highlighted by the
researchers was that eating either packed lunches or school meals made no
difference to children’s educational attainment. This finding is less reliable
because of the small number of children involved.
Where did the
story come from?
Dr Leon Feinstein and
colleagues from the Institute of Education at the University of London, the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Bristol
carried out this research. Core support for the study was provided by the UK
Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the University of Bristol. It
was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Journal of Epidemiology and Community
Health.
What kind of
scientific study was this?
This was an analysis
of data from a cohort study. The data came from the Avon
Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), an ongoing
population-based study designed to investigate the effects of environmental,
genetic and other influences on the health and development of children. Complex
statistical methods were used to assess the relative importance of diet on
school attainment at different ages.
The participants were
pregnant women who lived in the former Avon health authority in south-west
England and were expected to give birth between April 1 1991 and December
31 1992. Of all the potential mothers in this area, the researchers recruited a
group of 14,541 pregnant women and their 13,988 children who were alive at 12
months old. The mothers completed questionnaires during pregnancy and when the
children were various ages. Children’s educational attainment at 6–7 years and
10–11 years old was assessed by obtaining the Key Stage 1 (KS1) results for
reading, writing and maths and Key Stage 2 (KS2) results for English, maths and
science from the relevant education authorities. Key Stages are national
standards for what children should be taught at particular ages, children’s
levels of attainment of the set curricula are assessed at each age or Key
Stage.
Information about the
children’s diet was collected from mothers or main female carers using a food
frequency questionnaire, which asked about their child’s consumption of food
and drink at about three years, about four years and about seven years old. The
researchers identified three different patterns in the children’s diets: “junk
food”, containing high-fat processed foods (sausages and burgers), snack foods
high in fat and/or sugar (such as crisps, sweets, chocolate, ice lollies and
ice creams), fizzy drinks and
takeaway meals; ‘‘health conscious’’, comprising vegetarian foods, nuts, salad,
rice, pasta, fruit, cheese, fish, cereal, water and fruit juice; and
‘‘traditional’’, typically meat and cooked vegetables.
"Early eating
patterns have implications for attainment that appear to persist over time,
regardless of subsequent changes in diet"
Leon Feinstein, lead author
In the questionnaire
about the seven-year-old children, the mothers also reported whether their
child ate meals served at school or packed lunches provided from home, and how
often they did this. Frequency was recorded as: rarely, once in two weeks, once
a week, two to four times a week or five days a week. Details of socioeconomic,
demographic and lifestyle factors were also collected.
Of the 13,988
children in the original set of data, dietary information at all three ages was
only available for 7,703 children and, of these children, only some had
information on both KS2 and KS1 scores. The final study sample therefore consisted
of 5,741 children with complete information on food frequencies and both school
attainment scores results (41% of the original sample of 13,998 children).
What were the
results of the study?
The data collected in
the questionnaire about seven-year-old children showed that 29% ate school
dinners five days a week and nearly half (46%) ate packed lunches five days a
week.
The researchers found
that higher ‘‘junk food’’ dietary pattern scores at three, four and seven were
associated with lower average KS2 results. In contrast, a positive association
was shown for the ‘‘health conscious’’ dietary pattern and KS2 results. The
‘‘traditional’’ dietary pattern showed no association with KS2 results. When
potential confounding factors were taken into account, a
weak association remained between “junk food” at age three and lower
attainment.
There was no evidence
that eating packed lunches or eating school meals affected children’s
attainment, once the impact of junk food dietary pattern at age three was
accounted for in the model.
What
interpretations did the researchers draw from these results?
The researchers
conclude that “early eating patterns have implications for educational
attainment that appear to persist over time, regardless of subsequent changes
in diet.” Translation: Start your child eating and drinking healthy food, water and milk when they're infants and your child will benefit throughout life.
Luna and Lara
