'Five-A-Day' Could Boost Your Pay
Last updated 2/1/2008 5:47:54 PM
Few of us can have escaped the advice of experts that we should we eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day to ensure good health. But latest research goes a step further – and suggests that eating well as a baby can significantly increase your earning power as an adult.
Certainly that seems to be the case in Guatemala, where a revealing new study was carried out over 25 years. It examined the difference a nutritious diet made to the fortunes of youngsters living in a developing country – and those infants who had been better fed took home almost 50% more income later on.
The study, which is published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, was set-up between 1969 and 1977 - involving nearly 2,400 Guatemalan children aged up to seven years old. Some of the youngsters were given a nutritious supplement and some of them, a less nutritious one.
Six years ago, the researchers began gathering economic data from sixty per cent of the children involved in the project – who were now aged between 25 and 42 year old. It estimated annual income, hours worked and average hourly wages.
Among its findings, the study revealed that exposure to better nutrition up to the age of three was associated with higher hourly wages, but intriguingly only for men. It also suggested that those given a more nutritious diet from birth to the age of two enjoyed wages 46 per cent higher than the average.
The research concluded: “Improving nutrition in early childhood led to substantial increases in wage rates for men, which suggests that investments in early childhood nutrition can be long-term drivers of economic growth.”
Of course, food, schooling, the economic environment and social services all play a part in any child's development but the only variable in the long-term research was nutrition. And that's why the study is likely to get people talking – and thinking. The results may even affect how aid is distributed in countries in the developing world – and, who knows, could have even some sway on social policy towards the poor in more developed nations.
SOURCE: www.thelancet.com
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