Sugary Snacks Can Negatively Impact Young Children’s Cognitive Skills

Executive functioning in young children—the higher order cognitive skills that regulate memory, attention, and emotional control—may be significantly damaged by inadequate nutrition combined with living in a chaotic home, according to study findings from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Children between the ages of 18 months and 2 were more likely to struggle with basic executive functioning skills including inhibition, working memory, and planning and organizing skills if they ingested more processed meals and sugary snacks, according to surveys completed by their caregivers.

The roughly 300 families who participated in the study were a part of a birth cohort study that was continuing at the time data on the children's eating habits, weight changes, social-emotional growth, and family dynamics were first gathered at around 6 weeks of age.

The birth cohort study is funded by the National Dairy Council, Gerber Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and United States Department of Agriculture.

The current study was new in that it focused on kids when they were still developing these critical abilities and when factors like food and upbringing in the home could be quite important. Similar studies examining the relationship between diet and executive function had previously been carried out with older kids and teenagers.

The development of executive function skills in children may be hampered by the habitual use of unhealthy foods like sugary snacks and a chaotic home environment, according to analyses of data on hundreds of young children. The study's co-authors were graduate student Samantha Iwinski and professor of human development and family studies Kelly Bost. Thanks to Fred Zwicky

The first author of the study, graduate student Samantha Iwinski, said, "Children begin rapidly developing executive functions around the ages of 2-5, and we wanted to look at that initial period when parents were making critical food-related decisions and the impact these had on children's cognitive abilities."

The study was based on extensive information gathered from the children's caregivers, including a dietary intake questionnaire that evaluated how frequently each child received different fresh and processed foods. It was published in the journal Nutrients. Additionally, caregivers filled out a behavioral questionnaire that assessed different aspects of executive function, such as if the child became easily overwhelmed or frequently had issues playing loudly or talking too much.

Each caregiver also responded to questions about disorder in the home, including whether the child's environment was normally quiet and run according to set routines or was prone to loudness, crowdedness, and disarray.

Prior studies on adolescents and teens have connected behavioral issues and subpar performance on tasks involving fundamental aspects of executive function, such the capacity to focus and regulate one's emotions, to turmoil in the home.

Accordingly, assessments conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois revealed a link between poor nutrition, particularly regular consumption of various snacks and processed foods, and decreased cognitive function and behavior in the study's young participants.

We found that greater consumption of these items was associated with lower levels of a number of indices, such as emotional regulation, inhibition, and planning and organizing, according to Iwinski. Even at this young age, nutritional consumption may have a variety of effects on children's executive function.

The University of Illinois researchers postulated that less stressful environments and routines would mitigate the negative effects of a poor diet on kids' executive function.

Household chaos had an independent link with children's cognitive abilities, contrary to the team's hypothesis that it would moderate the relationship between executive function and nutritional intake.

According to co-author Kelly Freeman Bost, a professor of child development and psychology, the findings emphasize the significance of both healthy diets and households for fostering children's greatest cognitive development.

Iwinksi proposed that prevention programs concentrate on activities and supports that assist parents in creating healthy routines and limiting their children's consumption of snacks and less healthy foods in order to buffer potential adverse impacts on children's cognitive skills.

Lack of routine and consistency may have an impact on children's attention and emotional regulation, according to Iwinski. "Children may not interpret the signals around them when environments are chaotic or disorderly." In some social and emotional contexts, "these kids may not be able to comprehend cues and respond appropriately."

Iwinski and her co-authors are preparing a follow-up study with the same families and their children, who are now 5–6 years old, in order to further understand the relationships discovered in the current study and analyze how they endure or change as children age.

The results might not apply to other populations, though, because the sample lacked racial, cultural, and economic variety. Before making causal conclusions, the researchers added, more study with varied demographics and longitudinal and experimental project designs is required.

Bost and Iwinski collaborated on the paper with Barbara H. Fiese, co-director of the STRONG Kids2 project and professor emerita of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois, as well as Sharon M. Donovan, professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair of Nutrition and Health.

By UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN,