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New data shows hungry teens 4 years behind in their learning

New Zealand’s Health Coalition says food poverty has contributed to the nation’s poor performance in an international education achievement test for 15 year olds, reigniting calls for broader access to free healthy school lunches.

Most people in NZ will have heard of this report over the NZ media recently.

However, this article summarises some the sobering data from the latest Public Health communication center briefing which reported that NZ’s food poverty rates were amongst the highest of the 25 countries that provided data.

This research makes important reading as it also reinforces the importance of regular healthy meals to cognitive function.

While this research mainly focused on NZ youth, who are active and still growing, there are nutrition messages here for all of us regarding the importance of food security if we are to improve our physical and mental performance as well as our nations productivity.

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