Tehran University Medical Journal

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The effects of taking snacks on the learning ability and educational achievement of elementary school children in district 18 of Tehran educational organization were examined in the school year 1997-98. Other factors such as grade, nutritional status, breakfast eating habits and snack eating habits in the school were also studied. For this purpose 236 boys were selected by random sampling in 4 different schools. The children were randomly assigned to a group, with a low calorie snack (119 subjects), and a low-calorie control group (117 subjects), and then given 3 cognitive functions tests. The test were repeated after 4 months. The data were collected by questionnaires and included family socio-economic conditions, nutritional status and dietary habit of the children. Also, the grades of the major courses and scores of cognitive tests were collected, and the effects of treatment on the mean grades and scores differences were determined by T-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Our findings are presented as follow: The experimental and control groups were similar in the initial assessment. 7.1% of the students were stunted based on height-for-age classification (NCHS). The intervention led to an increase in tests scores, but the increase was only significant in the case of the short-term memory test (P<0.03). The findings of the study showed that the intervention was effective on short-term memory and since short-term memory function in memorization process and retrieval of subjects form long-term memory and congenitive functions, we can conclude that the food intervention with an energy lower than 10% of recommended dietary needs increases learning ability level of the subjects. Stunting and the habit of eating breakfast were related to educational performance of students. Therefore implementation of such programs in the community, such as food intervention and nutritional education may be effective.