Data_Sheet_1_‘Mens sana in corpore Sano’: Home food consumption implications over child cognitive performance in vulnerable contexts.docx

Diet directly affects children’s physical and mental development. Nonetheless, how food insecurity and household food consumption impact the cognitive performance of children at risk of social exclusion remains poorly understood. In this regard, children in Guatemala face various hazards, mainly related to the socioeconomic difficulties that thousands of families have in the country. The main objective of this study was to analyze the differences in cognitive performance considering food insecurity and household food consumption in a sample of rural and urban Guatemalan children and adolescents at risk of social exclusion. Child cognitive performance was assessed in 134 children and adolescents (age M = 11.37; SD = 3.54) from rural and urban settings. Language, attention, and executive functions were assessed using neuropsychological tasks. Differences in cognitive performance in each level of food insecurity and household diet consumption were compared using the Mann–Whitney U test. A stepwise multivariate regression analysis was conducted to determine which factors may influence cognitive scores. The results showed that rural and urban groups did not differ in terms of food insecurity. However, considering just rural areas, differences were found between groups with food security and insecurity in attention and executive function tasks. Moreover, differences were found in food consumption for certain groups of food (e.g., meat, U = 1,146, p

饮食直接作用于儿童的身心发展。然而，食品不安全与家庭食品消费如何影响易受社会排斥风险儿童的认知表现，这一议题至今仍鲜为人知。鉴于此，危地马拉的儿童面临着多种风险，这些风险主要与国家成千上万家境困难的社会经济困境相关。本研究的核心目标是分析在面临社会排斥风险的农村与城市危地马拉儿童及青少年样本中，鉴于食品不安全与家庭食品消费的差异，对认知表现的差异进行探讨。对134名儿童及青少年（平均年龄 M = 11.37；标准差 SD = 3.54）的认知表现进行了评估，这些儿童及青少年来自农村与城市环境。通过神经心理学任务对语言、注意力和执行功能进行了评估。运用Mann-Whitney U检验，比较了不同食品不安全程度和家庭饮食消费水平下的认知表现差异。通过逐步多元回归分析，旨在确定可能影响认知分数的因素。结果显示，农村与城市群体在食品不安全方面并无显著差异。然而，仅在农村地区，食品安全与不安全组在注意力和执行功能任务中存在显著差异。此外，在特定食品组（如肉类）的消费上，也发现了显著差异（U = 1,146，p