Academic Performance and Nutritional Status – A Case Study on College Students in North Tripura

Abstract

The development of any nation or community depends largely on the quality of education of such a nation. Understanding the nature of the causal relationship between health and education is important to determine the exact relation between them. The mechanism by which health and nutrition influence educational achievement is not well established, but poor health and malnutrition in early childhood may affect cognitive abilities, necessary for learning process and consequently educational achievement. This study shows that that, firstly, the tribal students have lower BMI values than their nontribal counterparts which may be due to dietary differences – tribal students have less access to convenience foods and as such may have less consumption of these type of empty calorie containing foods. Also the academic achievements of tribal students are a little lower than their nontribal counterparts which again comes out in the regression and negative correlation of BMI with academic achievement.