The impact of dietary intervention on the cognitive development of Kenyan school children

Twelve schools with 555 Standard 1 children were randomised to one of four feeding interventions: Meat, Milk, Energy, or Control (no feeding). Feeding continued for seven school terms (21 months), and cognitive tests were administered prior to the commencement of feeding and every other term of feeding. Hierarchical linear random effects models and associated methods were used to examine the effects of treatment group on changes in cognitive performance over time.

Findings:

• children receiving supplemental food with meat significantly outperformed all other children on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices
• children supplemented with meat and children supplemented with energy outperformed children in the control group on tests of arithmetic ability. There were no group differences on tests of verbal comprehension

Conclusion: Results suggest that supplementation with animal source food has positive effects on Kenyan children’s cognitive performance. However, these effects are not equivalent across all domains of cognitive functioning, nor do all forms of animal source protein show the same beneficial effects.