Nutrition and Student Performance at School, Essay Example

The video depicts a research study that was carried out in two different New Zealand schools. The schools had different decile ratings whereby one was rated a decile 10 school while other was a decile 1 school. It will be noted that the higher the degree to which a school draws students from low socio-economic communities the lower its decile rating. The socio-economic indicator is determined by the following five factors: household income, income support, occupation, education qualifications and household crowding. In this case therefore, the two schools being compared came from the extreme ends of the decile rating spectrum.

One of the main concerns raised by the researchers was the fact that almost all the children in the decile 10 school had eaten breakfast, had carried lunch as well as fruits while only a fraction of those in the decile 1 school had eaten breakfast or carried lunch. It was additionally noted that the lunch options for the children in the decile 10 schools were healthier, consisting of food items such as fruits, sandwiches, fruit juices, salmon and bread. Most of the lunch options for decile 1 students consisted of unhealthy snack s such as fizzy drinks and potato crisps.

The researchers were concerned on the effect of insufficient and unbalanced nutrition on the concentration of students in class, their overall health and other social consequential effects such as teenage pregnancy, poor educational achievements and unemployment. This is because hungry children are less likely to concentrate in class, more so if the little food they come across is unhealthy (Taras, 2005) Therefore, the poor conditions the decile 1 students face affect them are a double-edged sword; not only do they directly affect their health and impair their learning ability, but also keep them in an endless cycle of poverty, which is closely related with illness, unemployment and crime.

References

Taras, H. (2005). Nutrition and student performance at school. Journal of school health, 75(6), 199-213.