Assessment of nutritional intake and its relationship to educational achievement among high school students

having appropriate nutrition can affect the quality and quantity of adolescent students’ growth; therefore this study was conducted to assess the nutritional status and its relationship to the educational achievement among adolescent students. This cross sectional study was carried out on 800 adolescent students who were in a range age of 14-18 years in Sabzevar، Iran. Multi-stage random sampling was used. in order to this، after receiving permission from Sabzevar Education Office، subjects were randomly selected from the first to fourth grade girlish and boyish high schools of city and then، demographic checklist، academic information and food frequency questionnaire were completed by students. Also، their weight and height were measured using standard methods. The quantity of food mentioned in food frequency questionnaire was converted to gram through the domestic index guideline. Next، every food was coded biased on Nutritionist IV instructions and analysis was performed via descriptive statistics، frequency and the correlation coefficient and one sample t-test by means of SPSS 16 software in a significant level of P<0. 05. The mean BMI of female and male students were 20. 3±2. 7 and 19. 5±3. 2 kg/m2، respectively. Dietary assessment showed amount of Energy، vitamins A، C، D، folic acid، calcium، iron and zinc intake were less than DRI (P <0. 05). Also، among all of the nutrients there was only observed a significant correlation between iron intake and total average score and specific average scores in female students (P <0. 05). The findings of this study indicated a lower intake of some nutrients among sabzevarian high school students than the DRI.