A Study of The Relationship Between Nutritional Status and Scholastic Achivement Among Primary School Students in Wadi Eldawasir City
in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Manal Abd Elaleim Elsayead

Amal Saber Said

College of Education || Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University || KSA

DOI

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Nutritional status has been played an important role for the effect on physical growth, cognitive development, and physical work capacity, and it consequently influences human performance and Heath. The study aims to examine the association between results of educational tests and the nutritional status of School children. The methodology of the study included 150 school children in wadi eldawasir city, educational achievements were assessed by their score in mathematics, Arabic score, English score, Sciences score and Social score. Nutritional status was evaluated by anthropometric measurements, determining elements of the 24-hour recall of dietary intake, diet history. The most important results have shown that there are with respect to Arabic score, it correlated significantly positive with animal protein (p<0.05) (r=0.155) and total protein (p< 0.01) (r=0.173and “B6” (P<0.05) (R=0.137 AND 0.117) respectively .Also there is a positive correlation coefficient between science score and vitamin “C” and “B6” (P<0.05) (R=0.137 AND 0.117) respectively. In the end this study has found that there is a positive relationship between nutritional status and educational achievement . Keywords: Anthropometry – Nutritional status – socio – economic scholastic achievements – Wadi Eldawasir.

دراسة العلاقة بين الحالة الغذائية والتحصيل الدراسي بين تلاميذ المدارس الأولية
بمدينة وادي الدواسر المملكة العربية السعودية

منال عبد العليم السيد

أمل صابر سعيد

كلية التربية || جامعة الأمير سطام || المملكة العربية السعودية

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تلعب الحالة الغذائية دورا هاما في التأثير علي النمو البدني والتنمية المعرفية والقدرة علي العمل البدني، وبالتالي فهو يؤثر علي الأداء البشرى وتهدف الدراسة إلى دراسة العلاقة بين نتائج الاختبارات التعليمية والحالة الغذائية لأطفال المدارس . وقد اشتملت منهجية الدراسة على 150 تلميذة بالمدارس الأولية بمدينة وادي الدواسر وتم تقييم التحصيل الدراسي من خلال درجات الاختبارات في الرياضيات والعربي والانجليزي والعلوم والدراسات الاجتماعية وتم تقييم الحالة الغذائية من خلال القياسات الجسمية وتحديد العناصر الغذائية خلال 24 ساعة والتاريخ الغذائي. وقد أوضحت اهم النتائج ان هناك علاقة ارتباطية إيجابية بين درجات اللغة العربية والمستوي المأخوذ من البروتين الحيواني (p≤0.05, r=0.155) والبروتين الكلي ( p≤ 0.01, r= 0.173 ) و فيتامين B6 عند (P<0.05) (R=0.137 AND 0.117) وهناك أيضا معامل ارتباط إيجابي بين درجة العلوم وكل من فيتامين C, B6 (P<0.05) (R=0.137 and 0.117) علي التوالي . وجدت هذه الدراسة ان هناك علاقة إيجابية بين الحالة الغذائية والتحصيل الدراسي. الكلمات المفتاحية: المقاييس الجسمية، الحالة الغذائية، النواحي الاجتماعية والاقتصادية التحصيل الدراسي، وادي الدواسر.

Introduction

Nutrition is not only responsible for building up the body but it also plays a role in orientation of man’s behavior socially, morally, intellectually as well as personally . To build a healthy body from newborn through childhood, it is very important to stress that food consumed should adequately supply the body with all its requirements for growth, repair and energy both qualitatively and quantitatively. Therefore, good health depends on an adequate food supply (Gerald Wiseman, 2006).

Nutritional support for growth and development in such diverse circumstance as eating disorders, competitive sports, and pregnancy follows specific principles. Modifications may be required to ensure that physical development is normal and continuo in the face of wide swings in nutritional requirement based on the characteristics of a childhood life. The nature of psychological development requires that the most sophisticated counseling techniques available today be applied in helping children change long-standing food-related behavior than that impair their nutritional health. (International journal of applied and basic nutritional science, 2009). Nutritional assessment will help in developing good understanding of the nutrition status of the children in preventing malnutrition before it develops and in understanding of the reasons underlying the incidence of malnutrition. An important part of the nutritional status assessment is the measurement of growth and development of the individual. Physical measurement reflect the total nutritional status over the lifetime. Some measurements (Amoriim, Paulo, et al. 2006). Such as height, reflect past nutritional or chronic nutritional status. Others such as mid-arm nutritional status. Malnutrition affects physical growth, cognitive development, and physical work capacity, and it consequently influences human performance and Heath ( El Hioui M et al 2016). Finally, the recognition that food can affect brain development, function, and behavior has generated considerable interest, among the scientific community and the public.

Iron has been implicated in the lack of attention children pay to relevant stimuli and thus potentially impairs both learning and memory (Kanarek and Marks Kaufman, 1991), and consequently alters educational achievement, and mental functions (Sandstead, 1990). It is impossible to say whether malnutrition per se, contributes more or less to the depressed cognitive development of previously malnourished individuals than do unfortunate social and environmental conditions (Anonymous, 1973). For this reasons, it had been recommended to study the relationship between dietary intake and their biochemical indicators with the childhood’s scholastic achievement and other psychological tests.