The Impact of Nutrition and Sleep Upon the Learning Process
The effects of nutrition can begin before birth, with the nutrition of the mother. Under nutrition can result in negative effects of the development of the brain that can become permanent and irreversible. One example is the lack of iron, which is a necessary part of the brain’s tissue. When iron deficiency is present nerve impulses tend to move slower. “Iron deficiency…is associated with behavior changes and delayed psychomotor development” (Nutrition and Cognitive Development, 2001), as well as decrease attention span, irritability, fatigue, and difficultly with concentration. “ Anemia is one of the most prevalent nutritional disorders in the world, affecting nearly one
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An increase in poverty contributes to the lack of nutritional care within low birth weight children.
The rise in poverty and how it has affected young ones:
The rise in poverty has led to the increase in nutritional needs for young ones.
Children who live in low-income housing tend to be under nutrition which results in lost of knowledge, brain power and productivity. The children’s ability to learn in school fails because of diminished attention spans and memory due to the lack of nutrition.
Many school districts have tried to improve low-income children’s learning by providing programs such as the School Breakfast Program. The School Breakfast Program is a wonderful program that allows children to receive the nutrition they need. It is shown that ‘children who participate in school breakfast have lower rates of absence and tardiness’ (Nutrition for Learning, 2004). Children who have eaten breakfast also tend to show a general increase in math and reading scores. Unable to distinguish among similar images, increase in error and slower memory recall are all associated with children who skip breakfast. Overall, ‘the effects of breakfast program participation on school-related outcomes, such as student achievement, cognition, attendance, and psychosocial measures’ (Designs for Measuring How the School Breakfast Program Affect…, 2000) have shown to be positive outtakes from the School Breakfast Program. The only
If a child grows up living in poverty then the child’s health may be affected. This could be down to poor or unbalanced diet. If a child has a bad diet then various conditions may occur such as :- Nutritional anaemia this is due in lack of iron folic acid and vitamin B12.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports 16.7 million children under the age of eighteen live in a household where consistent access to adequate amounts of nutritious food for a healthy life is not obtainable. This is called food insecurity. Although this is harmful to any individual, it has major implications for children. Nutrition establishes
Children in need of these nutrients can suffer from stunted growth never reaching potential height. Statistics have shown stunted growth children score significantly lower on intelligence tests than do normal children. Hunger interferes with physical, emotional and academic development. According to Freedom from Hunger, “more than 4 million children will die due to hunger related causes.” NASW(2016) shows an important connection food security and nutrition play in physical and mental health.
We then began thinking more specifically by looking at how much sleep on average freshmen, sophomore, junior and seniors get per night
I have completed the sleep assessment and I am not surprise with the outcome it gave me. The results showed that my sleep habits could be better. Some days are better than others, but generally, I do wake up drowsy and hitting my alarm clock once or twice. I admit, I usually stay up on my phone past midnight like any other young adult. If it is not my phone that is keeping me up at night, it’s usually my mind reminding me of all the stress that may be going on in my life.
Cause 1: What causes the poor academic performance in children due to food insecurity is that they do not eat breakfast. The saying breakfast is the most important meal of the day is not just folk lore or a buzz phrase. The article by Sheila Terry and Kimberly Kerry, “Classroom Breakfast: Helping Maryland Students Make the Grade” published in the March 2000 issue of the Maryland State Department of Education, reports that “over a two-year period, classroom breakfast schools showed a 22% improvement in that score, [MSPAP test], compared to a 13% improvement for control schools
Sleep affects grades in more ways than one or two or even three. It affect how people feel, think, and act (Gruber,2013). This states that people that have less sleep behave differently than people that get the recommended amount of sleep for their age.They may be more likely to have mistakes in a class or job. They might even act different than they usually do. Sleep also has an affect of no motivation or effort in the work they do (Gruber,2013). This is important because this tells that the person that does not get enough sleep does not have much motivation or effort they put in to the work they perform.People with motivation tend to do things better than people that have none.
I see poor nutrition and low birth weight affecting students in my classroom more and more. There are many programs within districts to try to help offset the problem of poor nutrition. Our school has voted to implement breakfast in the classroom this fall. This program will allow every student in my class to have access to free breakfast every day. I used to keep extra food on hand in my classroom for students who would inevitably complain about not having had breakfast. A study on the breakfast program found that “There is significant evidence of positive academic effects due to breakfast consumption” (Benefits, 2010). This program is one way that we can help our students to have the nourishment they need to be able to learn and
A balanced nutrition for the first 3 years of a child’s life is extremely important to stabilize their mental and physical health in the future. Starvation is a common problem with poor families. It currently affects 49.1 million families in the United States. Undernutrition is the start to many diseases such as measles and malaria. If the children get these diseases, it is very likely that they don’t have health insurance to cover their illnesses and injuries. 15.8 million children have families who are not consistently stable to feed them. Food pantries are crowded and jam packed with people, that they don’t have enough food for all. The majority of canned foods and other donations are donated during Christmas or Thanksgiving when the food pantries need it the most. Nobody realizes that they need food all throughout the year. Food is the main component to fuel the body to grow and move. Poverty doesn’t just hurt a child physically through starvation, moreover mentally through learning
Within the United States, in 2014 we had 1 out of 7 children born into poverty (C., 2016). That is an outstanding amount of children starting life out with a disadvantage. Statistics show that the U.S. has higher poverty rates than other developed countries (O., 2014). When a child is born into poverty, they are faced with many challenges that people are not very cognizant of. Children living in poverty usually have trouble accessing proper healthcare, education, and nutrition. These simple things are taken for granted by most people, but all have a close relation to one’s wellbeing. When child’s health is poor and they are lacking adequate nutrition, they are more than likely going to struggle in school and potentially drop out. All in all, telling us at Uber that food insecurity is a serious problem that we plan on improving, starting in Dallas, TX.
Food insecurity is a major problem for children because they are still developing both physically and mentally. Bellisle (2004) discusses how a lack of a nutritious diet can have severe effects on a child’s cognitive ability as well as their behavior. He goes on further to explain that even in children with an adequate diet, there were still differences in their capacities compared to children were given the correct amount of nutrition. Food assistance programs are important for communities with families that cannot supply their children with enough food, as well as children who may be getting enough food, but not the correct nutrition. Skalicky, Meyers, Adams, Yang, Cook, and Frank (2006) add that children who experience food insecurity throughout their lives are more likely to have iron deficiency-anima than children who are food secure. They continue by explaining that it is even more difficult for children to obtain these resources themselves; they rely on their parents for support. If their parents are unable to provide the proper nutrition for them, food assistance
A large problem of childhood poverty is malnutrition. Since these children are growing up in poverty, many of the parents have a hard time supplying food for their kids. Surprisingly, there
Malnutrition is defined as a lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat. This is another environmental factor in which children of poor families are at a great disadvantage due to the fact that it tends to occur most in those confronting the adverse socioeconomic and environmental conditions typically associated with poverty. It has become widely known that malnutrition may lead to increased early child mortality, impairment of physical growth and substantial destruction to brain development. In addition, the short-term implications of malnutrition lead to long term complications and cognitive delays such as attention deficit disorder, impaired school performance, decreased IQ scores, memory deficiency, learning disabilities, reduced social skills, reduced language development, and reduced problem-solving abilities. It has even been argued that nutrition may be the single greatest environmental influence on babies in the womb, during infancy, and throughout the first years of life.
What are some of the benefits of sleeping and eating well with the proper diet and exercise in their life? There are many different behaviors and attitudes when it comes to health and happiness, especially with the different types of ethnic culture and race that have a very diverse belief when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. It is important to note, however, that we will be affected by age and there is not a physical way to turn back the hands of time.
Low SES has a lasting impact on an individual throughout their developmental lifespan starting from within the womb. Children born into low SES, poverty families, are more likely to have a low birth weight due to lack of required nourishment from the mother during pregnancy (Berk, 2014; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011), additionally, malnutrition that continues from early childhood into school years is found to lead to permanent physical and mental damage (Grantham-McGregor, Walker & Chang, 2000; Liu et al., 2003). Research unanimously reveals that children from poorer, low SES families are more likely to be under nourished compared with middle-high SES families, globally (Bhutta, Das, Rizvi, 2013). The research into nutrition and SES has aided governments free school meal