Eating fish, bread and cereals makes kids smarter

Wellington, Jan 19 (ANI): Wondering how to make your kids smarter? Well, giving them fish once a week and feeding them with bread and cereals four times a day can make a lot of difference, claims a Kiwi study.

The study from University of Otago revealed what parents should feed their children to make them smarter.

It suggests that eating certain types of food may boost or significantly lower kids' IQ.

Eating margarine has shown strong links with lower IQ scores.

The thesis by University of Otago research fellow Dr Reremoana Theodore, calls for further research into margarine and says children from disadvantaged families could be most at risk as margarine is often cheaper than other spreads.

She found that children eating margarine daily have "significantly lower intelligence scores".

It is believed that trans-fatty acids in margarine could be to blame might be responsible for low IQs

Richard Swinbourne, a dietitian who works with schools in the Taranaki region, says the findings need to be seen as part of a wider picture.

"You could have a child having margarine but if they were having a couple of bits of fruit a day, and going to school with breakfast, and physically active... I'm sure they would overshoot someone that wasn't having the margarine, alone," the NZPA quoted him as saying.

Along with the fish and bread Swinbourne also emphasises the importance of children eating breakfast.

In the study conducted over 600 New Zealand European children, as well as detailing the pregnancy of each mother. Theodore studied the effect of certain factors on children's intelligence.

She found that mothers who drank moderate amounts of alcohol while pregnant had children with much higher IQs, than those who did not.

However, Alcohol Advisory Council says this result seems to be "at odds with the great body of evidence linking alcohol to poor health outcomes for the foetus".

"There is no known safe level of consumption of alcohol during pregnancy and both Alac and the Ministry of Health advise pregnant women to avoid all alcohol," said council's acting chief executive, Dr Andrew Hearn.

Dietician Jacquie Dale says children don't need margarine, butter or other "blended" spreads on their sandwiches instead, parents should look for substitutes that are low in saturated fat, not overly processed and that contain some "goodies".

This may include peanut butter, hummus, cottage cheese, a thin slice of cheese, or chutney. (ANI)