Children should eat well to do well in academics say experts!

In a study done at Cornell University it has been found that students who are well fed do well in academics then those who are not.

The study was done at Cornell's Early Childhood Centre. The results said that inadequate eating reflects in impaired academic development especially in reading.

This phenomenon is termed as food insecurity. This is the condition when children do not have enough to eat due to poverty in households.

According to said Edward Frongillo, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell, "We found that reading development, in particular, is affected in girls, though the mathematical skills of food-insecure children entering kindergarten also tend to develop significantly more slowly than other children's."

Another result that came out of the study was that the social skills of girls suffer when families suffer from food insecurity after being secure while the child is in the early primary grades.

"In addition, we found that kindergarten girls from food-insecure families tend to gain more weight than other girls, which may put them at risk for obesity as adults," he stated.

The data was analyzed from the U.S. Department of Education's Early Childhood Longitudinal Study on about 21,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 and were followed through third grade.

"Despite federal food assistance and private charitable programs, food insecurity is a persistent national problem," said Frongillo, noting that it affects 12 percent of all households and 18 percent of households with children.

This study combines psychological as well as nutritional aspects.