How can a Healthy Lifestyle Influence Good Grades?

“You are what you eat.”

- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The food you eat determines your mood, energy level, and shape. If you eat healthily, you feel happy and active, and you feel lethargic and dull, if otherwise.

Role of Food in our Life:

Food plays a significant role in our life. It can cause and cure a lot of acute diseases.

Nobody has a perfect diet, not even the expert dieticians. The problem arises when these poor food choices turn into practices that take over healthy food habits.

These bad habits can lead to potentially dangerous chronic ailments like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, weight gain, and many more.

Sometimes these health problems can cause severe life threats and imbalance in life.

Balanced Diet:

We must maintain a balanced diet. A balanced diet contains different kinds of foods in appropriate quantities and proportions.

It is structured to meet all the necessities of calories, proteins, minerals, and vitamins.

A small provision is reserved for additional nutrients to endure the short length of leanness.

It is necessary to incorporate healthy eating habits. Eating healthy and staying fit constitutes a better lifestyle, promising an exceptional performance at professional and educational levels.

So which lousy food habits can potentially cause trouble to children?

Worse Eating Habits:

Processed Food:

Too much processed food is severely harmful. It is stripped of nutrients and contains plenty of salts and fats. Opt for more healthy and whole food. Read the labels and make a clever choice.

Mindless Eating:

Most of us eat food while feeling tired, bored, stressed, happy, or sad. It initiates unnecessary and overconsumption of food. It is essential to be mindful of what we eat and how much we eat.

Excessive Sugar:

Apart from candies and cakes, there is sugar in other food we eat like salad dressings, cereals, and many others. It is essential to look up the sugar content we consume daily and not overdo it.

Overeating:

Not eating throughout the day can cause energy levels to sink and lower productivity which are effects of poor nutrition. It can lead to overeating later, which is even worse. A proportionate meal is a must.

Drinks:

A flavoured latte, frothy cappuccino, or any other drink that you consume to start your day or go through a night may seem fun but contains a lot of sugar and fat.

It is essential to avoid these drinks or cut down the portion of consumption. You should replace them with drinks that contain lesser calories, fat, and sugar.

These food habits have a severe impact on adults as well as kids. Children develop unhealthy food preferences that deviate them from their academics.

How is Diet Linked with the Academic Performance of Children?

The body is in a building stage during childhood. At this stage, the body develops faster and stronger by the day.

Diet plays a significant role during that time. Poor nutrition exposes a child to illness and can cause stomach aches, headaches and invite other unnecessary issues in children.

These factors directly influence their attention and commitment to their lessons. It results in being absent in the class or paying zero attention.

A study by Li & O’Connell in 2012 showed that students of 5th grade who were more into fast food fared the worst on reading and math compared to students who ate healthier.

Therefore, it is essential to instill healthy food habits in children to boost their activity levels and academic performance.

How Does Diet Influence the Behavior in Children?

It is a fact that children who have a nutritious diet that includes vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, and proteins have a better and improved ability to concentrate and comprehend.

They possess a higher energy level constituting good eating habits for students. Diet has a direct impact on the studies and behaviour of a student.

A study was published in a paper in 2008, which mentioned the relationship between nutrition and behaviour in children.

The study emphasized that following healthy eating habits at regular intervals can enhance learners’ psychological prosperity.

It reduces emotional imbalances, making the children more disciplined in their conduct and work. Hence, there should not be any compromise in nutrition when it comes to children.

Healthy Foods to Improve Performance:

TV Commercials and offers on fast food can create a strong temptation to eat junk food, making it difficult to cultivate good eating habits.

Good eating habits for students are essential. It boosts their performance and energy. They stay active, which helps them to learn more.

Having a variety of food is essential to get all the nutrients in an adequate amount. A balanced diet is key to maintain good diet habits.

Here are some of the healthy foods to improve performance:

Fruits & Vegetables:

It is a known fact that there are great benefits and nutrients present in fruits and vegetables. Eating them raw will help to reap all the benefits.

The addition of fruits like banana, apple, oranges, with vegetables like spinach, broccoli, carrot, and many others in the diet can be advantageous.

Nuts & Seeds:

Adding brazil nuts, dry fruits, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, and similar nuts and seeds is profitable.

It improves performance, stimulates recovery, beats fatigue, reduces inflammation, and enhances performance.

Calcium-Rich Food:

Food items like milk, dairy products, millets, chickpea, nuts, and meat are calcium-rich. While it remains important throughout life, children significantly need calcium intake as their bone structure develops rapidly.

Gluten-Free Food:

It is better to avoid gluten while you can. Food like Peanut butter in banana roll-up, turkey and hummus sandwich, fiesta burrito, cinnamon peanut butter & jelly sandwich, or veggie dogs are an excellent substitute for gluten-rich food.

Protein-Rich Food:

Eggs are rich in proteins with high biological values. For vegetarians, alternatives can be pulses, beans, lentils, almonds, and various vegetables and milk products.

The mentioned list of healthy foods to improve performance is bound to enhance productivity if appropriately followed. It will also balance the intake of carbs, carbohydrates, proteins, calcium, and other nutrients.

Make the most of every meal while providing the required nutrients to your body.

Healthier Alternatives for your Favorite Food:

• Replace deep-fried chips and fries with baked vegetable fries or chips.
• Instead of ice-cream, try eating yogurt, fresh fruit smoothies, or sorbet.
• Replace cakes and doughnuts with bagels, English muffins, or home-baked desserts with less sugar.
• Chocolate-chip cookies can be taken over by Graham crackers, fig bars, or fruits with caramel dip.

These tips will help in not being deprived of junk food and maintaining a balanced diet.

Conclusion:

With the above details, we can conclude that the effects of poor nutrition can result in several downfalls for the students.

Not maintaining good eating habits for students displays behavioural problems and largely impacts their school test scores and grades.

Effects of poor nutrition results in poor health that leads to an increased rate of student absenteeism.

On the other side, healthy eating habits and staying active in school can help students feel better emotionally and mentally.

Due to high energy levels, they participate in more school activities and stay active and fit.

They build the ability to concentrate and eagerness to learn more, resulting in better grades and test scores.