Lack of Nutritious Food Hampers Learning in Indian Teens: Study

According to a study, food insecurity - lack of safe and nutritious food - can impact learning ability in teens.

Food insecurity impacts learning abilities in adolescents in India. 

(Photo: istock) 

Food insecurity - limited access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food at home - negatively impacts the learning ability of adolescents in India, a study has found.

Researchers from BITS Pilani in Goa and Imperial College London in the UK investigated inequalities in learning achievements at 12 years by examining test scores.

The study, published in the journal Economics of Education Review, looked at whether food insecurity at home at the ages of 5, 8 and 12 was linked to lower test scores at age 12.

Some 47 percent of children studied had experienced household 'food insecurity' -including skipping meals, eating less when needed and families not having enough money to put food on the table - at some stage during the observation period.

Our findings really highlight how even very early experiences of food insecurity can have a lasting impact on outcomes across the life course.

Jasmine Fledderjohann, Lancaster University, UK

Food insecurity at all ages hampered learning. The data showed lower vocabulary, reading, maths, Telugu and English scores in early adolescence. Children who suffered food insecurity at age five or chronic food insecurity had the lowest scores across all outcomes.

Early and chronic food insecurity were the most consistent predictor of impaired cognitive skills at 12 years, particularly reading and vocabulary development. Food insecurity in mid-childhood and early adolescence were associated with impaired ability in maths and English. These differences by subject suggest that the influence of food insecurity is not universal throughout childhood.

About 18 percent of the wealthiest of families in the study had also experienced insecurity, highlighting that food insecurity is not exclusively a matter of poverty.

For subjects such as reading and vocabulary, establishing foundational skills early on is very important. Early life food insecurity may disrupt building these baseline skills. For subjects such as maths, where learning at one level builds directly upon learning at the previous level, food insecurity at any time may derail current and future learning.

Through lower learning levels, food insecurity during childhood can have ripple effects for future earnings and health, which matters both for individuals and for the economic development of the country overall.

This is the first study of its kind to look at adolescent learning differences and household food insecurities at three stages of childhood - early, mid and adolescence - in India, researchers said. The data, involving almost 2,000, was taken from the Young Lives Study in India.

The research team hope their study findings will inform educational programmes targeting children at a higher risk of food insecurity - in tribal areas, urban slums and remote areas -providing them with extra educational support.

These effects are above and beyond factors such as schooling itself, nutrition, and children’s individual characteristics because we have accounted for these potential alternative explanations in our models.

Elisabetta Aurino, Imperial College London