Junk Food. Bad for MIND and body.

If ever you needed an incentive to cram your child full of nutritious food, and by that, I mean things like salad, rice, pasta, fish, fruit, this study’s findings will probably do it for you. Did you know that primarily processed-food diet at the age of three is directly associated with a lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, according to a Bristol-based study of around 14,000 British children?

No I didn’t either. I did know that feeding my offspring junk-food and takeaways wasn’t good for their physical health, but I wasn’t aware that it could have an impact on their brain power as well. It’s scary stuff.

Apparently the brain grows at its’ fastest during the first three years of life and the report says that: “It is possible that good nutrition during this period may encourage optimal brain growth.” So if my child has a diet high in fat, sugar and processed food content in early childhood this may affect their IQ in later childhood. I hasten to add that my kids have a pretty good diet, and that a takeaway is a special treat rather than a regular occurrence.

I think it’s hard enough for kids these days at school with all the pressure placed on them in terms of learning expectations and while I often feel at a loss as to how to help them, I’m kind of relieved that I haven’t put them behind the eight ball by having a poor diet when they were little.

But it is interesting to think that so much focus has been put on the fact that junk food and highly processesd foods are seen as a key factor in the childhood obesity epidemic. But now it seems it has a negative impact elsewhere too.

What do you think of these findings?