Abstract
In today’s research environment, children’s diet, physical activity, and other lifestyle factors are commonly studied in the context of health, independent of their effect on cognition and learning. Moreover, there is little overlap between the two literatures, although it is reasonable to expect that the lifestyle factors explored in the health-focused research are intertwined with cognition and learning processes. This thematic review provides an overview of knowledge connecting the selected lifestyle factors of diet, physical activity, and sleep hygiene to children’s cognition and learning. Research from studies of diet and nutrition, physical activity and fitness, sleep, and broader influences of cultural and socioeconomic factors related to health and learning, were summarized to offer examples of research that integrate lifestyle factors and cognition with learning. The literature review demonstrates that the associations and causal relationships between these factors are vastly understudied. As a result, current knowledge on predictors of optimal cognition and learning is incomplete, and likely lacks understanding of many critical facts and relationships, their interactions, and the nature of their relationships, such as there being mediating or confounding factors that could provide important knowledge to increase the efficacy of learning-focused interventions. This review provides information focused on studies in children. Although basic research in cells or animal studies are available and indicate a number of possible physiological pathways, inclusion of those data would distract from the fact that there is a significant gap in knowledge on lifestyle factors and optimal learning in children. In a climate where childcare and school feeding policies are continuously discussed, this thematic review aims to provide an impulse for discussion and a call for more holistic approaches to support child development.
Highlights
Learning, defined in this paper as acquiring new knowledge and skills, is a critical yet complex process in human development and is ubiquitous in early childhood
This review summarizes current knowledge on the effect of diet, physical activity, and sleep on the brain’s cognitive and executive function and children’s ability to learn
We did not complete systematic literature reviews or a meta-analysis, we hope that the published research presented here provides an overview of known relationships between modifiable lifestyle factors and children’s ability to learn
Summary
Learning, defined in this paper as acquiring new knowledge and skills, is a critical yet complex process in human development and is ubiquitous in early childhood. Basedskills) on this hypothesized interaction between physical learning outcomes math and language as well as conceptual understanding are very likely sensations, status, and the effort needed for optimal information processing, negatively reflecting influencednutritional by suboptimal dietary intake. While there is ample research in animal models to describe the relationship between individual nutrients and brain development and function, there is limited evidence on the effect of diet and nutrition on cognitive function in humans. The pathway by which this effect is asserted can be via direct contribution of the nutrient, such as for lutein or long-chain omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids, while other diet constituents function as intermediaries and modify a neural mechanism in the brain, in turn affecting cognitive function or learning processes [8]. The potential role of the “gut-brain-axis” in the human body has been hypothesized to be of critical importance; to date, only animal studies elucidate a possible direction and magnitude for this relationship [9]
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