Fast food reduces mental activity of schoolchildren
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Experts have long warned that because of the large amount of fats and preservatives, fast foods are dangerous to health. Frequent use of such products leads to obesity, problems with the heart and blood vessels, joints, digestive system, etc. At the same time, the most dangerous products of fast cooking are for children, who often use fast food can provoke problems with immunity, nervous system, and recent studies have shown that poor performance at school is also associated with frequent use of such products.
In the latest research project it was found that harmful food has a negative effect on the child's brain, which leads to a decrease in mental activity. Children, often using instant food, often had problems with mathematics, natural sciences, and also read worse than their peers.
According to some reports, unbalanced diet leads to iron deficiency, in addition, excessive consumption of sugar and fats adversely affects the learning process.
The head of the scientific project was Kelly Partell, who noted that the project studied the influence of fast food on more than 8,000 schoolchildren at the age of 10 years. The results were evaluated by specialists after 36 months.
Among all children, 52% used fast foods from 1 to 3 times a week, 10% - about 4-6 times, and 10% - every day.
In the last group of children (who daily consumed harmful food), experts noted 79 points on the scale of achievement in the natural sciences (among children who absolutely did not use such food, the indicator was equal to 83 points).
Also, scientists noted a lag in reading and math.
These results were quite expected, as a year ago one research group found that frequent use of fast food products provokes inflammation in the brain, namely in the hippocampus (such results were recorded in laboratory rodents). The hippocampus is responsible for spatial and verbal memory, in addition, obesity - the main danger of fast foods - causes changes in the brain and leads to inflammation.
Children are easier to accustom to a healthy lifestyle by establishing certain rules in the family. As observations of several thousand schoolchildren showed , among children whose parents did not forbid watching TV for a long time, playing computer games, they did not impose special restrictions on nutrition, and health problems often arose.
Observations showed that healthy lifestyles were more often followed by children and adolescents from families in which there were strict rules about food, watching TV, time spent at the computer. In such families children more often used vegetables, fruits, and also were engaged more often in any kind of sports. At the same time, experts noted that children continued to adhere to the rules established in the family, even in other places where there was no control of the parents.
It was also found that such rules were more often established in families with daughters and low socioeconomic status.
Experts noticed that there is no direct connection between the rules in the family and the weight of children, but scientists still admit the existence of an indirect link. According to experts, the rules change the behavior of children, and this, in turn, leads to weight loss. Thus, many parents are able to independently prevent health problems of children with simple rules.
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