New Study: Food Insecurity and Child Development

Posted by on June 9, 2006

A study published in December?s issue of the Journal of Nutrition, investigates the relationship between food insecurity and children?s academic performance (reading and mathematical skills), weight gain, and social skills (including behavior). The data was taken from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study?Kindergarten Cohort: a sample of over 21,000 children who were followed from kindergarten into third grade. The researchers from Cornell and the University of South Carolina used data elicited through the USDA food security module, direct academic assessment of math and reading ability, measured weights, heights, and resulting BMIs, and evaluation of students? social skills and behaviors from teacher questionnaires. Key findings are as follows:

* Food insecure children (vs food secure children) had smaller increases in math and reading scores over time.
* Food insecure girls showed greater gains in weight and BMI than food secure girls.
* Food insecure boys showed greater declines in social skills than food secure boys.
* Households than became food insecure, for any amount of time, showed poorer reading performance, especially among girls; there was a fairly short time period before food insecurity had its effects on girls? reading.
* Persistent food insecurity increased the delay in reading.
* Food insecurity at kindergarten best predicted math performance (not the change over time); researchers speculate that this is due to the fact that it might take longer for food security to affect math performance.

According to the researchers, ?this study provides the strongest empirical evidence to date that food security is linked to specific developmental consequences for children, and that these consequences may be both nutritional and nonnutritional.?

Read FRAC?s summary
http://www.frac.org/html/news/study012306.html

?Food Insecurity Affects School Children?s Academic Performance, Weight Gain, and Social Skills?; Available at the Journal of Nutrition for $8 (2-day access) or $30 (month-long access)
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/135/12/2831