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Elementary School Students: Unhealthy Diet Reduces Cognitive Ability

Even the youngest are taught how important a balanced diet is for a healthy life. A study from Finland now suggests that an unhealthy lifestyle can have a negative impact on the thinking ability of primary school children.

The study

Finnish scientists examined the diets of a total of 428 primary school children aged six to eight years. For this purpose, the researchers evaluated the 4-day eating logs of the students. The nutritional quality was assessed using two different point systems for diet types.

These included DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), an American diet that aims to stop high blood pressure, and BSDS (Baltic Sea Diet Score), which corresponds to the typical diet of the Baltic States. In addition to the nutrition log, the elementary school students were also tested on their cognitive abilities such as similarities, differences, and pattern findings. Pure knowledge and language skills were not taken into account.

The result

The analysis of the Finnish study showed that the nutritional quality of primary school children is directly related to the results of their cognitive tests. These results are independent of the age, gender, education, and income of the parents. According to the scientists, too little consumption of berries, fruit, vegetables, and whole-grain products as well as too much consumption of red meat and sausages have a particularly negative effect on mental performance.

An unhealthy diet actually reduces mental performance. The results of the study indicate that it is not individual foods or nutrients that are decisive, but the general dietary pattern. Further studies to substantiate these results are planned.

The recommendation

For children and adults, a balanced diet is essential for healthy development and healthy life. This is the only way to ensure that the body gets all the nutrients it needs to function properly.

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Lifestyle

This is How You Can Save Money While You are at School

From the school cone to the graduation trip – over the years, parents face high costs related to school attendance. In many areas, however, there is potential for savings that add up over the entire school year and are therefore worthwhile. Because not everything is really necessary for the school success of your child.

Parents pay around 21,000 euros for their children’s 12-year school education. There are sometimes horrendous differences between the individual federal states: If you live in Lower Saxony, for example, you will have to pay almost 30,000 euros for your child’s schooling. If you live in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, it is just under half. It is therefore worth taking a close look and exploiting the existing savings potential.

Potential savings in care

More and more parents are working full-time while their children are at school. In this respect, they are dependent on supervision. It is therefore not surprising that the costs for after-school care make up the largest proportion of the total costs of school life. Because: In the open all-day schools, care is offered at lunchtime and also in the afternoon, even if there are no more classes. Many parents are happy to take advantage of this, which means that a share of the childcare costs is incurred. On average in Germany, this amounts to 7,911 euros over the course of school life. In Thuringia, parents only pay 2,750 euros, while in Lower Saxony they are asked to pay 14,000 euros.

If you don’t want to resort to school care, you should try to organize care yourself. Together with other parents or even grandmas, grandpas, aunts, and uncles, neighborhood care can be organized that is completely free of charge. If a childcare contract is drawn up, the costs up to the age of 14 can even be deducted from tax as a special expense. Alternatively, you can hire a childminder or a student to organize the children’s afternoons in a meaningful way. This may even be beneficial for school success.

Potential savings in school materials

School satchels and sports gear are offered in new designs by the manufacturers every year. However, if you go back to a previous year’s model instead, you can save significantly. In terms of quality, this usually makes no difference and most materials are not used for long anyway. And since the children in the higher grades use the same models, your child is not at a disadvantage. In any case, it is worthwhile to compare different providers online, as the prices sometimes vary greatly. If the things no longer fit after a year, it is also advisable to sell them on. For this purpose, many schools have book fairs for school books, where you can buy used books and sell them again.

Potential savings in school meals

A healthy lunch is important. Nevertheless, you can still save here if you give your child a lunch box that you have put together yourself instead of letting them take part in the school lunch. However, arithmetic is required here, since school meals are often subsidized and therefore very cheap.

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Food

Healthy Snacks at School

Healthy eating is very important these days. One is confronted with the topic more and more frequently. In the past, people often just ate a quick sandwich for lunch to fill themselves up. Today, a large part of the population not only pays attention to taste and satiety but also to how healthy the food they eat is.
It is important to cover important nutrients in order to support the body and keep the organism healthy.

You can even find it in the supermarket today. Everywhere healthy options and variants for the snack in between. So you no longer have to grab a sausage roll if you want to be quick, you can also treat yourself to a quick snack during the break. If it tastes good and is good for us, what more do we want?

Often we don’t know what’s good for us, we just believe the packaging. However, caution is advised here. For example, if we buy “dark” bread instead of white bread, then that’s not necessarily good for us, it may just be dark-colored bread, and it’s not always whole grain, as is often assumed.

Also, hidden sugar is the enemy of anyone who wants to eat healthily. This can even hide in “sour” foods such as sauces and even bread etc. Other products, such as low-fat cheese, yogurts, etc., are also not always better than their whole-food counterparts, but can sometimes be problematic for weight loss and/or health.

Diabetes and obesity are also on the rise in childhood and are being dubbed the new epidemics of the 21st century. Both diseases are to be taken seriously and in the worst case can lead to death. Especially in childhood, the foundations for fat cells and muscles are laid, which determine our body composition later in life.

So what is a healthy diet?

As we know, that divides opinions. Some advocate a certain diet, others insist that everything is allowed as long as you don’t obviously get sick. For some time now, however, more and more research has been done in the field of nutrition and we have learned that certain foods, in excess, can actually make us ill.

So what is important when it comes to nutrition in order to stay healthy? And what can you bring to school as a snack without much effort? For that, we need to take a look at what the body needs to stay healthy and how best to absorb it.

Our body needs a certain number of macro and micronutrients per day to stay healthy. Our micronutrients are minerals, trace elements, and vitamins. Our macronutrients are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. The body needs macronutrients in particularly large quantities to maintain all functions.

Fat is responsible for the protection of the organs and hormone function. It is also the second most important supplier of energy in the body. Protein is the basic building block of the body that makes up nails, skin, blood, cells, muscle, hair, and much more.

Carbohydrates are not essential but are the body’s main source of energy because they are stored in the body as glycogen. If this is missing, then the body falls back on fat as an energy supplier. Also, many healthy foods are made up of carbohydrates. For example, some vitamin bombs, such as fruits and vegetables, consist primarily of carbohydrates and would therefore be absent in a diet without this macronutrient.

This means: In order to eat healthily, one should resort to foods with a high density of high-quality nutrients that do not cause blood sugar to rise and fall rapidly. These include foods with low or complex carbohydrates that are slowly released into the body.

For fats, make sure you’re consuming healthy unsaturated fatty acids, and for protein, make sure you’re covering all of the essential amino acids.

Conclusion

Eating healthy is not difficult and lack of time is no longer an excuse. All of the foods mentioned here are easy to take with you to ensure healthy nutrition on the go.

Those who make sure they eat the right food also guarantee better performance at school. Rapid rises in blood sugar, for example, cause hyperactivity and restlessness, and when they fall, total fatigue. Healthy eating is not only good for our health, but also for our academic performance. Furthermore, good fats and protein are essential for growth and nerve cells, which in turn has a major impact on concentration. That means a healthy snack at school is a win-win.

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