Jamie Zoellner, Wen You, Carol Connell, Renae L Smith-Ray, Kacie Allen, Katherine L Tucker, Brenda M Davy, Paul Estabrooks
Health literacy is associated with healthy eating index scores and sugar-sweetened beverage intake: findings from the rural Lower Mississippi Delta
Journal of the American Dietetic Association
existing evidence linking early undernutrition educational outcomes developing countries largely focused assessing impacts grade attainment achievement test scores limited evidence foundational cognitive skills required perform well school use unique data collected ethiopia peru part young lives study investigate relationship early undernutrition four foundational cognitive skills measured later childhood first two measure executive functioning working memory inhibitory control longterm memory implicit learning exploit rich longitudinal data available control potential confounders household individual level timeinvariant community characteristics also take advantage availability data pairedsiblings obtain household fixedeffects estimates latter specification find robust evidence stunting age 5 negatively related executive functions measured years later predicting reductions working memory inhibitory control 126 58 standard deviation although main cohort young lives around 12 years old executive functions measured complementary results analysis data available younger siblings suggest impact stunting executive functionsspecifically working memorystarts earlier age results shed light mechanisms explain relationship early nutrition school achievement tests suggesting good nutrition important determinant childrens learning capacities