# Researchers find evidence dietary patterns of children aged six months to two years can affect their IQ at eight years old.
# Breast milk, cheese, fruit and vegetables by age two improve IQ.
Eating junk food can reduce a child's IQ, according to new research.
A study found that while eating healthily can give a boost to intelligence, toddlers on a diet of drinks and sweets were less bright as they got older.
By the age of eight the ‘junk food’ tots had IQs up to two points lower than their healthy counterparts, according to researchers from the University of Adelaide.
The findings reinforce the need to provide children with healthy foods at a crucial, formative time in their lives, the authors claim in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
Dr Lisa Smithers, who led the study, said: 'While the differences in IQ are not huge, this study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that dietary patterns from six to 24 months have a small but significant effect on IQ at eight years of age.
'It is important that we consider the longer-term impact of the foods we feed our children.'
Her team looked at the link between the eating habits of children at six months, 15 months and two years, and their IQ at eight years of age.
The study of more than 7000 children compared a range of dietary patterns, including traditional and contemporary home-prepared food, ready-prepared baby foods, breastfeeding, and ‘discretionary’ or junk foods.
'Diet supplies the nutrients needed for the development of brain tissues in the first two years of life, and the aim of this study was to look at what impact diet would have on children’s IQs,' said Dr Smithers.
'We found that children who were breastfed at six months and had a healthy diet regularly including foods such as legumes, cheese, fruit and vegetables at 15 and 24 months, had an IQ up to two points higher by age eight.
'Those children who had a diet regularly involving biscuits, chocolate, sweets, soft drinks and chips in the first two years of life had IQs up to two points lower by age eight.
'We also found some negative impact on IQ from ready-prepared baby foods given at six months, but some positive associations when given at 24 months.'
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