“New Study Reports Strong Links Between Food Insecuirty and Negative Developmental Consequeces for Young School-age Children,” frac.org, January 2006

Food insecurity reduces reading and mathematical performance and socializing skills among school children and also increased their weight, found a study published by the Journal of Nutrition by researchers from Cornell University and the University of South Carolina. Food insecure children of both sexes, compared to those who were food secure, had small increases in math scores and reading scores over time. Poorer reading performance particularly occurred among girls. Moreover, there was a fairly short time lag between food insecurity and its effects on girls’ reading. Food insecure girls gained more weight than food secure girls, and food insecure boys showed greater declines in social skills than food secure boys. “Food insecurity…serves as an important marker for identifying children with dealyed trajectories of development,” the researchers concluded. The study used a nationally representative sample of 21,260 children from 1592 elementary schools who were followed from kingergarten in 1998-1999 up to the third grade. Both the duration of the research and its large sample provide greater statistical power and legitimacy of the associations between food insecurity and developmental outcomes in young children. read more >>