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If a 3-year-old eats too much processed food, it might lower his or her IQ by the age of 8, a new study suggests. Researchers in Britain tracked what 14,000 children ate and drank at the ages of 3, 4, 7, and 8.5 years of age, by asking parents to complete questionnaires detailing their child's diet.
The study authors suggest their study found some evidence that when 3-year-old children eat a diet rich in foods that are high in fat, high in sugar and are processed, their IQ may find a small decrease in their IQ five years later. On the flip side, this new study suggests eating a healthy, nutrient rich diet may be associated with a small increase in IQ.
The study authors note that in this paper "we report weak but novel associations between dietary patterns in early childhood...with general intelligence assessed at 8.5 years of age." Their research also suggests that what a child eats in the first three years of life is associated with a modest decrease in intelligence, but what a child ate at age 4 and 7 did not.
"Their IQ may find a small decrease in their IQ"? haha who writes these articles?
Either way, the fact that there is a market for canned feces is unsettling.
A report of a study that claims "weak but novel associations" is EXACTLY the kind of study that news media needs to stay away from. It's this kind of irresponsible reporting that led people believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism! Shame on CNN for reporting on this nonsense.
Now that's funny!
I yam rilly smart an I eat all kinda junk.
"Their research also suggests that what a child eats in the first three years of life is associated with a modest decrease in intelligence"
The use of excessive punctuation marks is a sign of lower intelligence.
It is very annoying that CNN does not bother cover for the obvious. I would expect the scientists try to control for that but who knows if this was well done. I would like this study replicated a few times and a plausibility link found. Otherwise, this is yet more fearmongering from the media and uncareful scientists.
Karen, the obvious is often wrong. Also, you are falling for what is called the natural fallacy. For instance, opium may be natural but I can guarantee you that it is not good for you. Countless other "natural products" are very bad for human consumption. Plants did not evolve to be consume by humans, they evolved to make more plants like themselves. Some happen to be good for human consumption but most do not.
I can't eat processed meats. My joints hurt afterward.
Those synthetic ingredients sure to make it task good though.
Oh my word? You mean our bodies need good nutrition to function properly? How amazing.
I mean stop eating canned crap!
How about eating canned crap?
Amy, IQ is not completely determined by biology, there are many social and environmental factors as well. Connections in the brain are made until puberty, at which time the brain starts pruning and eventually stabilizing. It was thought that new connections could not be made at all post puberty (fixed IQ). Some recent studies did find that new connections do grow, however nowhere near the volume that happen between birth and puberty. Connections are made through exposure and experiences, more connections means a higher IQ. Education between birth and puberty plays a huge role in IQ. It does seem that biology sets a natural range for the IQ of an individual, but nurture plays a huge role in IQ, much more than you apparantly believe.
Typical scare-mongering headline to get people believing in the next bogeyman.
Lowered vitamin D levels are linked to lower I.Q.'s.
Ha. this is perfect for my psychology report. Food messes with little children brains, it's perfect!
maybe their high carb junk food diet is actually deficient in healthy fats which help grow the brain. i think the reporter does a disservice making it sound like kids shouldn't eat fat. http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/fats.html#fatsbuild
Stunning! All these researchers found is that parents who make the extra effort to avoid feeding their kids processed foods (which is not easy to do), are also probably more active in their kids education and learning to begin with. Of course they're smarter! To say this study shows a link between IQ and processed food is absurdly simple minded.
Not the 20's try the '50's and early '60's.
There are WAY too many confounding variables to say that processed food is linked to lower IQs. Did this study include the lifestyle and parenting habits of the parents? Nope.
I don't think any of those people are still alive. You'd have to go back to the 20s to find a time when that was true.
I love it. This is just like cigarettes. Decades after the country has consumed volumes of the stuff, a report comes out that it may be affecting kids' IQ/causing cancer/causing lead poisoning….whatever the issue is. HOW MUCH money are we spending as taxpayers to find out the obvious, record the obvious, report the obvious? If the world came with natural products provided for us and we've strayed into eating "laboratory" everything, what else would be reasonably expected?
Good fuel fuels good results. Bad fuel fuels bad results…..Hello! Can we use more brains and less taxpayer money? Just a thought. I mean, I could be in charge of pointing out the obvious, if you want.
Inmyopinion, it is far easier to tell low/average IQ parents to feed their kids "a healthy, nutrient rich diet" to boost their IQ than it is to tell them that they have to buck up and show greater intelligence in their interactions with their children.
Now I understand my life!!!! Baloney sandwiches made me dumb!!
My thoughts exactly. They don't say whether they corrected for other obvious factors, e.g. low parental IQ.
These scientists ate some processed foods as children apparently.
Could it be that parents with low iq's are feeding them this cheap food? I would trust this more if they tested a group of kids with the same level of iq one diet with and without processed foods and look at those results.
Low I.Q. and lack of education are two completely different things. A low I.Q. is something you're born with. External factors can affect it somewhat, but not to the degree you're apparently thinking. Someone with a naturally low I.Q. isn't going to be able to get a very good education, because they will lack the capacity to do so, no matter how much they may want it.
What's the excuse for all the dumb and low IQ parents who were born and raised when there were barely any processed foods sold in the stores who now are raising these low IQ children, perhaps there is a connection there besides food????? Maybe scientists should look into dumb and low IQ parents not taking any interest in their children's intelligence, education knowledge since they themselves didn't care about their own intelligence, knowledge, education ????? I heard a parent in the store tell the child the mouse he was looking at was not a rabbit but a ferret, it was a mouse!!!!!