Sunday Age The results are in: Vegies make the grade
How do you boost the test scores of Australian students?
According to an article published in the paper today, the answer could be sitting in the crisper drawer of the fridge. An Australian study has linked eating vegetables with dinner to higher NAPLAN test scores. Students who devoured vegetables every night achieved NAPLAN scores that were an average 86 points higher in writing than those who steered clear of their greens. Eating vegetables had a significant impact on students’ performance in all areas of the NAPLAN test, except for numeracy.
Co-author Tracy Burrows, an associate professor in the school of health sciences at the University of Newcastle, said the connection between food and academic performance needed to be investigated further. One potential explanation might be that fruits and vegetables influence neurological activity, promoting better cognitive function.
The causes and reasons for academic success are many and varied.
On the same page of the Sunday Age, it was reported that academic performance in Victorian schools had declined as result of the Victorian Education Department changing the grading system. Well, no. The kids are still performing in the same way, the goalposts have just shifted.
But coming back to the link between diet and academic success. This study has identified a statistical correlation between the consumption of certain food types and academic success.
There are numerous and humorous examples of spurious statistical correlations For instance the divorce rate in Maine and the consumption of margarine (for others see http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations).
But coming back to the connection between nutrition and academic performance which isn’t quite as stupid as margarine and divorce.
The problem is that the two are not causally connected and to claim that “Eating vegetables had a significant impact on students’ performance” is simply not true
It is possible that families with good diets are likely to be better educated and come from better socio-economic backgrounds both of which are factors generally associated with better academic performance. It is therefore likely that there will be some correlation between diet and academic performance.
But to say that “that fruits and vegetables might influence neurological activity, promoting better cognitive function” does not appear to be borne out by the study.
So it does not mean that simply giving your child lots of fruit and veg is going to help them get a better NAPLAN score. 
There are lots of benefits from feeding your child well but better academic scores is not an automatic one.
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