There’s no free lunch, Moms and Dads. Â That trip through the drive-thru may be easy and convenient, saving you the hassle of preparing dinner at home, but it is having lifetime implications for your children.
A study conducted by an academic at the University of London reports that children who consume more fast food grow up to have a lower IQ than those who regularly eat freshly-cooked meals.
4,000 Scottish children aged 3-5 years old were examined to compare the intelligence dampening effects of fast food consumption versus  “from scratch”  fare prepared with only fresh ingredients.
Dr. Sophie von Stumm of the Department of Psychology at the University of London said:
“It’s common sense that the type of food we eat will affect brain development, but previous research has only looked at the effects of specific food groups on children’s IQ rather than at generic types of meals.”
Higher fast food consumption by the children was linked with lower intelligence and this was even after adjustments for wealth and social status were taken into account.
The conclusions of this study confirm previous research which shows long lasting effects on IQ from a child’s diet. An Australian study from the University of Adelaide published in August 2012 showed that toddlers who consume junk food grow less smart as they get older.   In that study, 7000 children were examined at the age of 6 months, 15 months, 2 years to examine their diet.
When the children were examined again at age 8, children who were consuming the most unhealthy food had IQs up to 2 points lower than children eating a wholesome diet.
Tips for Keeping Kids off Processed Food
How to keep your children from eating fast food and nutrient poor processed foods? Â Just don’t buy it or bring it into the house. Â If it’s not in the pantry, your kids won’t be eating it and neither will you. Â Simple as that.
Keep a few containers of healthy snacks like additive and MSG free jerky (here’s the one I buy) and nuts with you in the car for when the family is ravenous and tempted by the drive thru or other unhealthy snacks.
If your kids don’t want the healthy snacks and only are asking for junk food, they aren’t really hungry. It’s either boredom or emotional eating so just say no and wait until you get home to prepare them a decent meal.
For a crazy and extreme video clip of how I taught my kids to hate fast food, click here. Â Trust me, your kids will thank you later when they have an easier time with school and life in general as a result of your efforts!
If you have drawn a line in the sand about fast food at your house too and have tips to share, please tell us about it in the comments section!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Food is fuel for the body and that includes the brain. Of coarse bad nurtrition is one of the causes. Teacher to student ratio both parents working, too much t.v., not enough critical thinking and not building a proper foundation of health when the children are young. These all come into play along with several others. It’s never just one thing.
$8 for 2.2 ounces of jerky? I didn’t feed my kids junk food, but I couldn’t have managed the price of this jerky. Jerky was a rare treat on camping trips and I made my own.
Making jerky is wonderful! I’ve done it a few times but this brand is worth it to me and I buy what I can as I like to support companies making great products. Buffalo meat is expensive yes, but our food budget is cheaper than almost everyone I know with a family our size and we eat only the best. Cut out the junk and the expensive stuff fits in rather easily.
This is an observational study and so cause and effect can’t be determined, only that the two occur together. It could quite well be that kids with low IQs are more likely to eat fast food because they don’t think about nutrition, not that fast food makes you stupid.
The article states that the researchers adjusted for wealth & social status. Both wealth & social status are loosely tied to intelligence, so in a round-about way, researchers did take intelligence into account…. Anyway, these were young kids. They didn’t chose their meals, their parents did.
That’s what I was thinking, Bobbie. Though I’m sure lack of proper nutrition does come into play with lower IQ, but it also stands to reason that the socioeconomic background of those eating fast food is more closely correlated to IQ. Or that intelligence plays a tremendous role in our decisions to avoid fast food. (not to say that all those who eat naturally are geniuses or anything, I’m certainly not, or that those who don’t eat naturally are stupid, but you cannot assume a simple cause/effect with this many variables)
@Bobbie Tornblom u got it exactly
“the science” indeed haha, many are losing their primal (common) sense
correlation does not imply causation. Stupid people eat fast food.
I was just about to post pretty much the same thing, but you did it in fewer words and more concisely than I would have. Kudos!
So if I eat at McDonalds I vote for Obama?
Not funny. I’m a real foodie, don’t eat McDonald’s or feed it to my children, and I will be voting for Obama. This really isn’t the forum for politics. There are people who believe in real food from both political parties.
But would your children vite for Obama if they were provided all the facts? Maybe you had too much fast food when you were a kid. You only report that you are a foodie now, but we don’t know what you were eating when your brain was forming.
Thanks, sharing
Go figure