Posted: May 06, 2011 5:22 am
Tyrannical wrote:Nutrition certainly isn't an issue in the US unless obesity is linked to low IQ.
I don't quite follow? Poor nutrition is what causes cognitive deficiencies, not the obesity. Obesity can of course be a result, or indicator, of malnutrition though. If people were eating healthily, and eating the "correct" foods, they are (presumably) unlikely to become obese.
Tyrannical wrote:Low IQ linked to nutrition is normally at near starvation levels I thought.
Firstly, again to clarify, someone can be fat and have poor nutrition so 'starvation' levels aren't really relevant here. Secondly, I think what you're referring to is nutrition in the child's early years. However, we do know that poor nutrition can have severe, and permanent, effects on someone's IQ - obviously the worse the malnutrition the greater the deficits, but it's undeniable that deficiencies during childhood can produce differences of around 10 IQ points. Thirdly, what I'm referring to is not nutrition levels during childhood, but rather during pregnancy, which is one of the primary causes of intrauterine growth retardation. This has been demonstrated to have significant effects on learning and other cognitive functions in the individuals affected, but for a lot of humans this isn't so much of a problem because they are given an environment which can counteract these effects - but clearly people from lower socioeconomic groups don't have these same advantages, and mixed with the other disadvantages of being raised in a poor family, the effects tend to be significant and irreversible.