Food insecurity and academic performance in Spanish adolescents: Results from the EHDLA study

Edina Maria de Camargo; Sitong Chen; Estela Jiménez-López; Desirée Victoria-Montesinos; Lee Smith; José Francisco López-Gil

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29489

Food insecurity and academic performance in Spanish adolescents: Results from the EHDLA study

Heliyon. 2024 Apr 16;10(8):e29489. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29489. eCollection 2024 Apr 30.

Authors

Edina Maria de Camargo¹, Sitong Chen², Estela Jiménez-López^{3

4}, Desirée Victoria-Montesinos⁵, Lee Smith⁶, José Francisco López-Gil⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physical Education, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba 81531-980, Paraná, Brazil.
² Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
³ Health and Social Research Center, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), 16071 Cuenca, Spain.
⁴ Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
⁵ Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition, UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, 30107 Murcia, Spain.
⁶ Centre for Health, Performance and Wellbeing, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK.
⁷ One Health Research Group, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito 170124, Ecuador.

Abstract

Introduction: Food insecurity is a growing global issue that affects both developed and developing nations, and mounting evidence suggests that decreased consumption of healthy foods has been linked to lower academic performance in adolescents. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between food insecurity and academic performance in a sample of Spanish adolescents aged 12-17 years from the Valle de Ricote (Region of Murcia, Spain).

Methods: The present study analyzed data from the Eating Healthy and Daily Life Activities study, which included a sample of 777 adolescents (55.3 % girls). The Spanish Child Food Security Survey Module was used to assess food insecurity, and academic performance was evaluated using school records provided by the schools. Linear regression models (fitted by robust methods) were used to compare the relationships between food insecurity status and academic performance-related indicators.

Results: Adolescents with the highest levels of food insecurity reported the lowest academic performance in language (mean [M] = 4.7; 95 % confidence interval [CI] 3.6 to 5.7), math (M = 4.6; 95 % CI 3.5 to 5.8), foreign language (M = 4.8; 95 % CI 3.8 to 5.8), and grade point average (M = 5.7; 95 % CI 4.9 to 6.5). Conversely, adolescents with the lowest levels of food insecurity reported the highest academic performance in language (M = 6.2; 95 % CI 6.0 to 6.5), math (M = 5.9; 95 % CI 5.5 to 6.2), foreign language (M = 6.2; 95 % CI 5.9 to 6.4), and grade point average (M = 6.7; 95 % CI 6.5 to 6.9) compared to those with higher food security.

Conclusions: Living in a more food-insecure household could explain the lower academic performance of adolescents. Food insecurity should always be on the agenda of public policies. The availability of quality basic food essentials must be ensured in permanently satisfactory quantities without compromising access to other fundamental needs.

Keywords: Adolescence; academic achievement; hunger; socioeconomic status; undernourishment.