Shariff Z M, Bond J T, Johnson N E
Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia.
Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2000 Dec;9(4):264-73. doi: 10.1046/j.1440-6047.2000.00191.x.
The relationship between nutrition, health and educational achievement of school-age population in less developed countries has been of interest to many researchers due to the frequent observation that many children did not complete primary school and those who completed, did not do as well as children in the developed countries. Nevertheless, nutritional and health status by itself is not the only variable affecting educational achievement, since biological, psychological, socioeconomic and cultural factors could directly or indirectly affect both nutrition, health status and educational achievement. The mechanism by which health and nutrition influence educational achievement is not well established, but poor health and malnutrition in early childhood may affect cognitive abilities, necessary for learning process and consequently educational achievement. A study was conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to investigate the relationship between nutritional status and educational achievement among primary schoolchildren from low income households (n = 399). A high percentage of them were mild-significantly underweight (52%), stunted (47%) and wasted (36%) and increasingly overweight (6%). In general, more boys than girls were found to experience some form of malnutrition. While weight-for-height did not differ significantly according to family, child and school factors, weight-for-age and height-for-age differed significantly by gender. Also, height-for-age was significantly related to household income. This indicates that stunting may be a consequence of prolonged socioeconomic deprivation. Educational achievement was measured based on test scores for Malay language (ML), English language (EL) and mathematics (MT). While a majority of the schoolchildren obtained optimum scores (>75) for ML and MT, the majority of them had insufficient scores (<50) for EL. Children's total score (TS) for the three subjects was significantly associated with household socioeconomic status, gender, birth order and heightfor- age. Even after controlling for household socioeconomic status, significant association between TS and height-for-age persisted. In this sample of schoolchildren, household income, gender, birth order and height-forage were significant predictors of TS. The finding that height-for-age is related to educational achievement agrees with other studies, which have reported that height-for-age, compared to weight-for-height or weight-forage is linked to educational achievement. Height-for-age reflects the accumulation of nutritional deprivation throughout the years, which may consequently affect the cognitive development of the children.
由于经常观察到许多儿童未完成小学学业,且即便完成学业的儿童,其表现也不如发达国家的儿童,因此,欠发达国家学龄人口的营养、健康与教育成就之间的关系一直是许多研究人员感兴趣的课题。然而,营养和健康状况本身并非影响教育成就的唯一变量,因为生物、心理、社会经济和文化因素可能直接或间接影响营养、健康状况和教育成就。健康和营养影响教育成就的机制尚未完全明确,但幼儿期的健康不佳和营养不良可能会影响学习过程所需的认知能力,进而影响教育成就。在马来西亚吉隆坡进行了一项研究,以调查低收入家庭小学生(n = 399)的营养状况与教育成就之间的关系。他们中很大一部分人轻度至显著体重不足(52%)、发育迟缓(47%)、消瘦(36%),且超重情况日益增多(6%)。总体而言,发现经历某种形式营养不良的男孩比女孩更多。虽然按身高体重比在家庭、儿童和学校因素方面无显著差异,但年龄别体重和年龄别身高在性别上有显著差异。此外,年龄别身高与家庭收入显著相关。这表明发育迟缓可能是长期社会经济贫困的结果。教育成就根据马来语(ML)、英语(EL)和数学(MT)的考试成绩来衡量。虽然大多数小学生在马来语和数学科目上获得了最优分数(>75),但他们大多数人在英语科目上分数不足(<50)。这三门科目的儿童总分(TS)与家庭社会经济地位、性别、出生顺序和年龄别身高显著相关。即使在控制了家庭社会经济地位之后,TS与年龄别身高之间仍存在显著关联。在这个小学生样本中,家庭收入、性别、出生顺序和年龄别身高是TS的显著预测因素。年龄别身高与教育成就相关这一发现与其他研究一致,其他研究报告称,与身高体重比或年龄别体重相比,年龄别身高与教育成就相关。年龄别身高反映了多年来营养剥夺的累积情况,这可能会进而影响儿童的认知发展。