by Aimee Keenan-Greene
 
How does your child's diet today affect their intelligence later in life?  
 
A healthy diet filled with high intakes of nutrient rich foods could make kids smarter.  
 
Research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health says a poor diet high in fat, sugar and processed foods in early childhood may be associated with lower IQ's later.  
 
The current study used the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which collected data on children's diet reported by parents in food-frequency questionnaires at ages 3, 4, 7 and 8.5. Dietary patterns were identified using principal-components analysis and scores computed at each age. IQ was assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at 8.5 years.  Complete data was available for 3966 children. 
 
Scientists concluded:
 
The "processed" (high fat and sugar content) pattern of diet at 3 years of age was negatively associated with IQ assessed at 8.5 years of age. A 1 SD increase in dietary pattern score was associated with a 1.67 point decrease in IQ (95 percent CI −2.34 to −1.00; p<0.0001). 
 
The "health-conscious" (salad, rice, pasta, fish, fruit) pattern at 8.5 years was positively associated with IQ: a 1 SD increase in pattern score led to a 1.20 point increase in IQ (95 percent CI 0.52 to 1.88; p=0.001). 
 
The population-based cohort study was done by Kate Northstone, Carol Joinson, and Pauline Emmett, of the School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK,Andy Ness of the Department of Oral and Dental Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK andTomáš Paus of the Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. 
 
Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

  • obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008.
  • obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0 percent to 18.1 percent in 2008.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture  recently announced they are raising the nutrition standards for National School Lunch and School Breakfast meal programs for the first time in fifteen years, making critical changes to school meals this fall to help improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs everyday.

The proposed changes to school meal standards would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals.  The recommendations are based on the October 2009 report by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (IOM),  School Meals:Building Blocks for Healthy Children. Schools would also be required to limit the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories, and trans fats in meals.  
  
Doctors say obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure, bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems such as stigmatization and poor self-esteem.  They are more likely than youth of normal weight to become overweight or obese adults, and more at risk for associated adult health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. The school menu improvements come as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama last December. It is an important component of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation.  
Recently, one of the largest new weight studies completed says you don't have to be obese to raise your risk of premature death - being just overweight can cause problems as well.
New England Journal of Medicine study involved 1.5 million people and concluded healthy white adults who were overweight were 13 percent more likely to die than those whose weight was in an ideal range.
 
Right now two-thirds of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese according to the CDC. 

Overweight begins at a body mass index measurement of 25, obese at 30 and morbidly obese at 40.

Globally kids are packing on the pounds.  

A new report  last fall by the World Health Organization in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says the number of young overweight or obese children  has increased about 60 percent in the past 20 years. In 1990, 4.2 percent of kids under age 5 were overweight or obese - in 2010 it is 6.7 percent. That's 43 million kids, 81 percent of them live in developing countries. The number is expected to increase to about 60 million over the next decade. At least 92 million young children face the risk of becoming overweight. 

Researchers say it will likely hit 9.1 percent by 2020.

Obesity is worse in developed nations than in developing ones. 

According to the WHO study, the greatest numbers of overweight young children in 2010 live in South Central Asia, where the estimate is 6.6 million.

The study authors used data from 450 surveys representing 144 countries. 

Additional Resources: 

Click here to see a comparison of the before and after school lunch menu changesDo you know your BMI? Try this calculator. CDC 
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