The Effect of Nutrition on Children's Mental State and Performance: Evaluation of Perceptions and Attitudes of Parents in Four European Countries

To date, there is a growing body of evidence that diet might influence the development and functioning of the brain, which, in turn, has an effect on mental state and performance. Since parents are seen as the gatekeepers to a child?s diet and provide the key environment for the development of a child?s eating behaviours, they constitute an important group of consumers for nutritional communication through policies, public health intervention programmes and health claims about functional food products. The author, Brigitte Brands, using three different methodological approaches, aims to qualitatively and quantitatively examine the current perceptions and beliefs of parents about the relationship between what children eat and their mental development, state and performance. Building from an introductory overview of contemporary research, parental perceptions are evaluated and discussed in the light of public health importance and consumer science. This work has been conducted in the context of an EU funded initiative which aims to further our understanding of the effect of nutrition on the mental development and performance in children (www.nutrimenthe.eu).