suffered from these “Western” diseases possibly because their diets are rich in vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

The United Healthcare/Pacificare nutrition guideline recommends a whole plant food diet, and recommends using protein only as a condiment with meals. A National Geographic (November 2005) cover article, titled The Secrets of LIVING LONGER also recommends a whole plant food diet. The article is a lifestyle survey of three populations, Sardinians, Okinawans, and Adventists, who generally display longevity and "suffer a fraction of the diseases that commonly kill people in other parts of the developed world, and enjoy more healthy years of life. In sum, they offer three sets of 'best practices' to emulate. The rest is up to you." In common with all three groups is to "Eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains."

The National Geographic article noted that a NIH funded study of 34,000 Seventh-Day Adventists between 1976 and 1988 "...found that the Adventists' habit of consuming beans, soy milk, tomatoes, and other fruits lowered their risk of developing certain cancers. It also suggested that eating whole grain bread, drinking five glasses of water a day, and, most surprisingly, consuming four servings of nuts a week reduced their risk of heart disease."

Note that cancer is now common in developing countries. According a study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer: “In the developing world, cancers of the liver, stomach and esophagus were more common, often linked to consumption of carcinogenic preserved foods, such as smoked or salted food, and parasitic infections that attack organs.” Lung cancer rates are rising rapidly in poorer nations because of increased use of tobacco. Developed countries “tended to have cancers linked to affluence or a "Western lifestyle" – cancers of the colon, rectum, breast and prostate – that can be caused by obesity, lack of exercise, diet and age.”

The French "paradox"

It has been discovered that people living in France live longer. Even though they consume more saturated fats than Americans, the rate of heart disease is lower in France than in North America. A number of explanations have been suggested:

• Reduced consumption of processed carbohydrate and other junk foods;
• Ethnic genetic differences allowing the body to be harmed less by fats;
• Regular consumption of red wine; or
• Living in the South requires the body to produce less heat, allowing a slower, and therefore healthier, metabolic rate.
• More active lifestyles involving plenty of daily exercise, especially walking; the French are much less dependent on cars than Americans are.

However, a growing number of French health researchers doubt the theory that the French are healthier than other populations. Statistics collected by the WHO from 1990-2000 show that the incidence of heart disease in France may have been underestimated and in fact be similar to that of neighboring countries.

Mental agility

Research indicates that improving the awareness of nutritious meal choices and establishing long-term habits of healthy eating has a positive effect on a cognitive and spatial memory capacity, potentially increasing a student’s potential to process and retain academic information.

Some organizations have begun working with teachers, policymakers, and managed foodservice contractors to mandate improved nutritional content and increased nutritional resources in school cafeterias from primary to university level institutions. Health and nutrition have been proven to have close links with overall educational success (Behrman, 1996). Currently less than 10% of American college students report that they ate the recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables daily. Better nutrition has been shown to have an impact on both cognitive and spatial memory performance; a study showed those with higher blood sugar levels performed better on certain memory tests. In another study, those who consumed yogurt performed better on thinking tasks when compared to those who consumed caffeine free diet soda or confections Nutritional deficiencies have been shown to have a negative effect on learning behavior in mice as far back as 1951.

>“Better learning performance is associated with diet induced effects on learning and memory ability”.

The “nutrition-learning nexus” demonstrates the correlation between diet and learning and has application in a higher education setting.

>“We find that better nourished children perform significantly better in school, partly because they enter school earlier and thus have more time to learn but mostly because of greater learning productivity per year of schooling.”

>91% of college students feel that they are in good health while only 7% eat their recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables.

>Nutritional education is an effective and workable model in a higher education setting.

>More “engaged” learning models that encompass nutrition is an idea that is picking up steam at all levels of the learning cycle.

There is limited research available that directly links a student’s Grade Point Average (G.P.A.) to their overall nutritional health. Additional substantive data is needed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that overall intellectual health is closely linked to a person’s diet, rather than just another correlation fallacy.

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