In other schools: Diet affects grades, Students choose money
April 2, 2008
Researcher links diet and academic performance
EDMONTON (CUP) – Students looking to ace their final exams had better watch what they eat. New research has drawn a correlation between healthy diets and better grades.
University of Alberta Public Health Services professor Paul Veugelers led a study involving 5,200 grade five children in Nova Scotia that linked academic performance to dietary quality.
While the findings, which are published in the April edition of the Journal of School Health, may seem like common sense, Veugelers said that very little research has been done in this area.
The principle of manipulating diet to change your ability to learn, he said, works at any age.
“The important thing here — and I think that applies not only to elementary school students but also to university students — is that these findings basically justify that we invest not only in more hours of studying, but also invest in more time to eat healthy,” he said.
Veugelers reiterated that there are no studies looking at whether university students with healthier diets perform better than their junk-food-loving counterparts.
“But I think it’s reasonable to extrapolate that [correlation]. If you give me a million dollars, I’ll investigate it for you,” he said.
Most students in it for the money
WINNIPEG (CUP) – A new study has found that students choose their courses based on long-term job prospects more than on how much fun they think it will be.
The study, entitled “Do Students Choose Courses for Love or Money?” was released by the Warwick Institute for Employment Research and published by the Education Guardian, a U.K.-based magazine.
It revealed that, for many students, a good job and long-term career plans are the major motivating factors for choosing university courses and degrees.
Of the 130,000 students polled in the study, 21.6 per cent said that getting a good job was their top reason for choosing what to study. Only 16.9 per cent said they were studying because of interest.
As well, in the study, 55 per cent of students had a clear idea of what kind of job they wanted after graduation, whereas eight per cent indicated having no clear idea.
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