Is Dietary Intake Related to Test Anxiety and Scholastic Performance in Indian Adolescents? The Search Continues

Excerpt

The current issue of the journal has published a timely and important study by Parad et al. which addresses the interrelation between dietary intake, test anxiety (TA) and scholastic performance (SP) in urban and rural adolescents in and around Pune city [1]. This cross-sectional, observational, school-based study (having an adequate sample size with its power being 0.9) reports that although most of the urban and rural adolescents consumed less energy [75–95% of Recommended dietary allowances (RDA)] than required for their age; and less protein and other micronutrients like dietary iron, zinc and calcium (90–99% of RDA); for all macro- and micro- nutrients, urban adolescents consumed significantly greater amounts than their rural counterparts [1]. Another important finding of the present study is that although most rural adolescents belonged to lower Socioeconomic status (SES) families their consumption of junk food was significantly higher [1]. The present study highlights that, after adjusting for SES, urban adolescents were significantly taller, heavier and had higher Body mass index (BMI) Z-scores [1]. Although urban adolescents had a nutritionally advantaged status, they had similar moderately elevated levels of TA (even after adjusting for SES) as compared to their rural counterparts [1]. However urban adolescents performed significantly better on a multiple-choice question (MCQ) test based on their respective class-wise syllabus [1]. Parad et al. have attributed the better SP of urban adolescents to them having educated parents who help them in their studies and their access to tuition classes [1]. After applying correlation tests and regression analysis to their data, Parad et al. conclude that TA and junk food intake negatively affects SP, but only among urban adolescents [1]. …