Bhubaneswar, Feb. 13 -- Primary school children who ate midday meals over an extended period were shown to have significantly better learning outcomes, according to researchers of Indian-origin.
The researchers, in the study published in the Journal of Development Economics, suggest a powerful connection between nutrition and education.
Professors Rajshri Jayaraman from ESMT Berlin in Germany and Tanika Chakraborty from the Indian Institute of Technology in India studied the effects of India's midday meal scheme - the world's largest free school lunch programme - feeding over 120 million children every day.
The study showed that children with up to five years of midday meals had reading test scores that are 18 per cent higher than those ...