Higher IQs linked to healthier diets in kids
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Plenty of studies have established a link between breastfeeding and intelligence. One meta-analysis of 20 such studies found that babies who were breastfed got an IQ boost of 3.16 points, on average (even after adjusting for the fact that moms with more education are more likely to prioritize breastfeeding).
If there is indeed a link between diet and brainpower, is there any reason to think it would be limited to babies? Not necessarily. The brain grows the most during the first three years of life, and scientists have found that this growth is also linked with long-term cognitive ability.
With all this in mind, researchers from the University of Bristol in England looked at data on 3,966 kids whose eating habits had been tracked since the age of 3 and whose IQs were measured when they were about 8 1/2 years old. (Average score: 104.)
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Kids were grouped into broad categories based on their overall eating habits (as assessed by a food frequency questionaire) over several years. Some kids ate a “traditional” diet that included meat, poultry, potatoes and vegetables. Some ate a “health-conscious” diet heavy on fruit, vegetables, fish, pasta and rice. Some ate a “processed” diet made up of convenience foods that had high fat and sugar. In addition, some kids also consumed many “snacks,” defined as finger foods including fruit, bread, cookies and cake.
At first glance, the researchers found that children in the “processed” food category paid for it with IQ points, while children on “health-conscious” diets and those who ate “snacks” got a small IQ boost. Kids who ate a “traditional” diet were neither helped nor harmed in the IQ department.
But when the researchers controlled for a variety of factors – including duration of breastfeeding, the mother’s education, social class and the number stressful life events each child experienced – those links became much weaker or disappeared altogether. In the final analysis, eating “snacks” at age 3 was associated with a 1-point increase in IQ. The more a child stuck with the “health-conscious” diet, the higher his or her IQ, and the more a child followed a “processed” food diet, the lower his or her IQ (that effect was about twice as large as the benefit associated with eating healthy foods).
In other words, all the effects were small.
The study was published online Monday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
