Food a recipe for school success
Further shock news... what children eat really does make a difference...
This week a national conference on healthy eating in schools highlighted just how much remains to be done and how precarious are the gains so far.
Two major problems were highlighted: a lack of money to implement change and a need to educate pupils, parents, and school kitchen staff.
There was also a positive note. Research evidence suggests that if we really can crack the problem of poor nutrition amongst children, we may simultaneously solve many of the problems of anti-social behaviour, exclusions and poor literacy standards that beset schools.
That might seem a big claim but it came from an authoritative, and scientific, source.
Bernard Gesch, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physiology at Oxford University, riveted the conference with his presentation linking food to behaviour.
His evidence is based on research he carried out, not in schools, but in prisons.
This involved giving one group of prisoners food supplements containing vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. Another group were given placebos. Neither prisoners nor staff knew who was on the supplements and who was receiving the placebo.
The supplements did no more than ensure that the prisoners taking them would meet the government standard for prison diets (as in schools, while nutritious food was available, the inmates did not always choose it).
The results were quite stark: the anti-social behaviours of those on the food supplements fell by over 35%. The most serious violent acts fell by even more. There was no change for those on the placebo.
Another experiment, conducted by Dr Alex Richardson of Oxford University, involved young children, aged from six to 11, in Durham.
All these children had specific difficulties in motor coordination, over 30% had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD), and 40% had specific learning difficulties and were more than two years behind in reading and spelling.
The experiment provided the children with supplements containing Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and vitamin E.
Again, the results were very clear. Compared with the expected progress for normal children, the recipients of the supplements improved their reading ability at more than three times the normal rate, and more than twice the rate in spelling, over three months of treatment.
There were also significant improvements in their ADHD symptoms.
Mr Gesch also referred to research in schools in the US, where a new regime of banning vending machines, providing nutritional education, better food and low dose vitamin-mineral tablets had improved both behaviour and academic standards.
In this experiment with five to 10 year olds, after one year, exclusions had fallen by 80%, violent acts were down by 97%, and the school's test scores in maths and English had shot up, taking it from being the lowest in the school district to first and second in maths and English respectively.
So, compared with the hundreds of millions being spent on reducing exclusions and truancy, and raising standards, the government might do better to channel more funds into school children's diets.
Link: BBC NEWS | Education | Food a recipe for school success.