Health behaviour and academic achievement in Icelandic school children

P. Allegrante2 Interest in the relationship between health behaviours and academic achievement has re-cently intensified in the face of an epidemic of childhood and adolescent obesity and converg-ing school reforms in the United States and other nations with advanced economies. Epide-miologic research has demonstrated that poor diet and lack of adequate physical activity place children at risk for being overweight and obese and thus influence future health status. Addi-tional research has also shown that children and adolescents whose diets are nutritious and whose participation in physical activity is high tend to perform better on various measures of cognitive performance and academic achieve-ment. We analysed cross-sectional survey data from 5810 Icelandic school children to explore the relationship between selected health behav-iours and academic achievement. Body mass index, diet and physical activity explained up to 24 % (P < 0.01) of the variance in academic achievement when controlling for gender, pa-rental education, family structure and absen-teeism. Variance explained increases to 27% when depressed mood (P < 0.05) and self-esteem (P < 0.01) are added to the model, but confounds the role of physical activity. Al-though not robust, these findings are consistent with previous work and affirm the complexity of the relationship of health to academic achievement