Lose Your Belly, Feed Your Brain: A Correlational Study on Food Habits and Academic Achievements of Secondary Level Students

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to find out the nature of the association between Food Habits and Academic Achievements of Secondary level students from the Baranagar Municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. Method The investigators used a correlational method for this study. A cross-sectional survey of a sample of 404 Secondary level students was done. Different types of statistical techniques (like- t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, and Simple Linear Regression analysis) were subsequently used for necessary inferences from the data analyses. Results At 0.05 level of significance, a statistically significant difference was found between male and female Secondary levels students’ food habits while no statistically significant difference was found between the groups’ academic achievements. But, statistically significant differences were found among the male and female students with respect to the sub-categories of their food habits and also with respect to the sub-categories of their academic achievements. However, an overall highly positive association between food habits and the academic achievements of those Secondary level students was found where the values of the Pearson’s correlation had been 0.792 and R2 had been 0.63. Hence, from this study, it has also been found that a variation in Food Habits of the Secondary level students as an independent variable can explain collectively about 63% of variations in Academic Achievements of the same group of students as a dependent variable. Conclusion Food is human’s one of the basic need. It is one of the most important factors for students’ Academic Achievement also at the Secondary level as at this stage, adolescent students grow and develop rapidly. For everyone, food-taking is important but overmuch food-taking is also a cause for poor academic achievements.