We frequently see students struggling with their studies. As the exam approaches, the struggle often reaches to extreme, sometimes even inhuman or dreadful levels. I have seen many students falling sick or having a sort of nervous breakdown during their exams. 

Struggles with studies are not new to anyone. But few are interested or aware of their types and sources. Parents and teachers remain very concerned and worried about their students’ weak performances. And after all their effort goes to vain they are left with no other choice than to label the student as bad in studies. And the result of the exams become their strongest testimony. 

But at the end, such an approach towards studies yields no benefit to the student and also not any to the parents and the teachers. Then what is the use of such standards or methods or practices?

What should be the ideal objective of the education system? Is it just to filter out the students and label them as good or bad? Or the purpose should be to facilitate maximum support to the student in an expectation or hope that he or she can do better or can recover. 

If even the effort goes to vain in some cases it will still stand as the purpose and objective of the education system and hence it cannot be in vain or waste. At least the purpose has been met. Maybe the outcome was not destined to be as expected. Still every effort matters. 

Well I have gone too deep into the philosophical orientation of education and systems. But I also have a purpose for that over here. Let me now come to that purpose exactly.

Poor performance of a student can have a diverse range of reasons. And that can be from more than one source. 

Parents and teachers always remain concerned and keep trying to make their child or student perform well in studies. But here the problem is different. Before you can solve a problem you first need to find and understand the problem. And exactly this is where the actual bigger problem lies. 

Seldom do parents and teachers dig into the real problems of their students and in most cases they act or react on the basis of their own conception and understanding. And in most cases they are not even enough experienced or trained to do that. 

Thus they all start hitting in the dark and if it hits then there arises a winning situation else there remains only darkness of defeat. And in that darkness the student is the maximum loser because it is his or her life and career at stake.

So there is no much use in haunting or getting haunted for performances in studies. That does not yield good results in most cases. Instead of that if we can follow some specific process or methods or what I prefer to call protocols then the chances of better yield increases to a significant level.  

And within that process the issue of food for the students is an important one. I said before that performance in studies involves many variables, some of which we have not even discovered yet. Psychologists and educationists are constantly researching that all around the world. But whatever we are able to know by today is enough to develop an effective process. 

Many such researches and established theories of biology, psychology and nutrition sciences suggest the importance of right food for students. On a simpler note I would like to add that “the quality of output is directly proportional to the quality of input and the same applies for quantity”.

Food is our input. Have you ever heard of an engine of a costly vehicle getting damaged due to use of substandard fuel like impure petrol or diesel? Have you ever heard that fighter jets always require the best quality gasoline? 

Food is our source of energy and nutrition and nourishment, both physical and mental. And it is very evident that our performances in all different sectors including education will be significantly dependent on what we intake as food or eatables. 

Despite being so evident, I have hardly seen a teacher or a parent trying to figure out the food habits of a non-performing or low-performing student. At most they will say “eat well”. But that small sentence is too ambiguous and vague to be taken too seriously. As a result no one does anything significant on the food of the student. 

Biology and relevant Sciences most affirmatively declares that human performance depends on the quantity and quality of nutrition inputted. There is no space for non-compliance with this.  

There are many problems which can hinder studies and in this article I specifically chose the problem of food and nutrition. If parents and also teachers get enough conscious about the importance and process of nutrition for a student then at least one big hindrance will move out. That is my objective in this article. 

So far we have discussed the need to find real problems in the studies of a student and how food plays a vital role in that. Now it is important to know how to solve this problem of food and nutrition. The total of the subject is too vast and this one article does not have enough space and scope for that. So we just surf on some important points regarding the choice of food.

This is essentially one of the biggest factors which can determine the ultimate nutrition of a student in a significant way. 

We all eat food. This process starts right from the mother’s womb. This is one of our biological compulsions that we cannot overcome or bypass. Many people eat less and many eat more. But everybody has to eat. 

Many things contribute towards making our food habit. One major factor is the type or category of our work or engagements. That essentially guides us in matters of calorie (energy value of food) and nutrition value we need to intake. The input must be in proportion to the output in terms of energy and nourishment. 

I have seen many students who are very casual about or sometimes even almost deterrent to food. I have seen too many of such. I have seen students who most spontaneously prefer very low quality or even harmful foods. That also I have seen too many. I have seen parents and guardians equally less concerned or even ill concerned about their child student’s food choices and habits. And I have seen teachers who are totally not concerned about what their students are actually eating. Almost all of the teachers with few rarest exceptions. 

Still everyone wants a good academic performance, a good career, a secure job or source of income and ultimately plenty of prosperity. That’s what I see as a great paradox. 

It is true that we can find many such students who scored good in exams, secured good positions in the academic world and done quite well in the market of job and profession. It may appear that their food habit did not hinder their way to progress and prosperity. But at the cost of what? 

We must remember that our student life is not meant to burn us out. On the contrary, student life is supposed to be the building time of our journey of life on this planet. That is their learning and developing time.  

But in most cases I have seen that students wear them out, burn them out during their early student days. They think that their main and real challenge in life is their student life. And if somehow they can pass that stage of life, and somehow secure a job or source of income then they are done. This is one of the most erroneous perceptions and vision of life.

When those people actually enter the main part of life, by then they are sick and weak, weared-out, diseased, under-performing in almost every domain and dimensions of life. Even many will die away just at the middle of their journey. Is this the ideal output and purpose of our student life? What do you think?

If students need to protect themselves from the stresses and strains of academic pursuits and professional developments, then good food, good sleep, and a good lifestyle are the only ways to do that. And that is exactly the purpose I am writing this article for. I would like to see students follow a good and healthy food habit for their academic performance, professional success and holistic wellbeing. 

This is only possible when students as well as parents and guardians will be able to choose the right food. Right food in the right quantity at the right time can bring out significantly improved academic performance from a student. One just needs to make a habit of this. It may be sounding not so comfortable or may even be quite hard for some, but the return is magnificently great. 

To make the right choice you need to have some knowledge about food ingredients and their nutritional values. You need to know something on the theories of human nutrition. Though I agree with this still I will not be able to write much on these in this small article. It would need bigger space and greater scope to do so. 

In this article I would cover some specific food items that can have significant beneficial contributions to the students. 

By now we are supposed to be convinced about why we should need to choose the right food for the students. So the next question that obviously follows is “How to do that”, or how to choose the right food? 

There are plenty of theories and guidelines regarding food and nutrition all around. But there are also too many mistakes and misconceptions all around. Not all theories are right nor every theory has to be applicable for each and everyone. 

There are usually a lot of scopes of customization in the areas of food and nutrition. Not every student has the same lifestyle, not every student studies the same subjects or takes the same workload. So their food also can be different and that is quite possible. 

Building up any specific theory or process in a field so full of diversities is a nearly impossible task. Still there must be some general guidelines following which students will have maximum probability to get benefits. Subjects life Biology and Nutrition can show as the right path for now. 

According to biological theories, there are 5 major categories of foods when we classify them according to the nutritional value. Nutritional values are very important for the choice of right food. Otherwise actually most people nowadays consume more food but still remain malnourished and hence physically and mentally unfit and compromised. 

Consuming food and paying a high price for the same, still not getting enough nutrition and energy cannot be an acceptable choice for any student or parent. Still that continues to happen knowingly or unknowingly. All need to be very careful on the efficiency of the food for the students. 

As I was saying, food nutrition is subdivided into 5 categories, viz. protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals. All of them are essential and none of them are replaceable or substitutable. All the ingredients have their own set of functions and contribute to a student’s studies and health in one way or another. 

All the nutritional ingredients have their own proportions of intake suitably calibrated to various factors or variables. Those variables can be like age and gender, can be like amount or type of work or even also on the type and amount of studies any particular student does. Every small thing can become important sometime or other. 

The two most important nutrients are carbohydrates and protein. So let me start the discussion with one of these two. 

I could have started by protein, as it is no less important for a student, still I preferred carbohydrates, why?

Many people have many misconceptions about carbohydrates and even some people are trying every means to prove that carbohydrates are more enemies or villains than friends. But that is one great misconception. 

For us carbohydrate is the most important nutrition, as it is the most basic nutrition that we intake daily. Do you know what they give us in the hospitals during any crisis time, when one is in a very serious condition?

Have you ever heard the name ‘saline’ ?

This is what they give us during crisis time in the hospitals. But why do they do so?