Children Who Ate Midday Meals Had Better Reading and Maths Skills

Primary school children who ate midday meals over an extended period were shown to have significantly better learning outcomes, find researchers of Indian-origin.

Primary school children had better learning outcomes who ate midday meals over an extended period, found researchers of Indian-origin. The findings of the study reveal a powerful connection between nutrition and education.

The study is //published in the Journal of Development Economics.

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‘Children who ate midday meals for five years showed an improvement of 18 percent in reading test score and 9 percent in maths compared to children who are on less than a year of school lunches.’

Professors Rajshri Jayaraman from ESMT Berlin in Germany and Tanika Chakraborty from the Indian Institute of Technology in India studied the effects of India's midday meal scheme - the world's largest free school lunch program- feeding over 120 million children every day.

The study showed that children with up to five years of midday meals had reading test scores that are 18 per cent higher than those of students with less than a year of school lunches.

In addition, they showed an improvement of nine per cent for maths test scores.

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"The effect of nutrition appears to be cumulative, seen over time. Previous studies have varied between two weeks and two years, and failed to capture the important impact. Our research shows that the real benefit of school lunches was seen in children exposed for two to five years," said Jayaraman.

For the study, the researchers used data from nearly 600 rural districts in India, covering over 200,000 households.