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The present study investigated schooling effects on cognition. Cognitive data were collected as part of a research project (ProMeal) that investigated school meals and measured the intake of school lunch in relation to children's health, cognitive function, and classroom learning in four Nordic countries, among children between 10-11 years of age. It was found that Finnish pupils attending 4th grade were not, on any measure, outperformed by Norwegian and Icelandic pupils attending 5th and Swedish pupils attending 4th grade on a task measuring working memory capacity, processing speed, inhibition, and in a subsample on response- and attention control. Moreover, boys were found to perform superior to girls on tasks measuring processing speed. However, girls were found to perform better on tasks related to attention and self-control. The results are discussed in relation to the reciprocal association between cognition and schooling and whether these results reflect quality differences between schools in the four Nordic countries; most notably in comparison to Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: School meals, if both nutritious and attractive, provide a unique opportunity to improve health equality and public health. Objective: To describe the study rationale, data collection, and background of participants in the study 'Prospects for promoting health and performance by school meals in Nordic countries' (ProMeal). The general aim was to determine whether overall healthiness of the diet and learning conditions in children can be improved by school lunches, and to capture the main concerns regarding school lunches among children in a Nordic context. Design: A cross-sectional, multidisciplinary study was performed in Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden on pupils (n = 837) born in 2003. Results: In total 3,928 pictures of school lunches were taken to capture pupils' school lunch intake. A mean of 85% of all parents responded to a questionnaire about socioeconomic background, dietary intake, and habitual physical activity at home. Cognitive function was measured on one occasion on 93% of the pupils during optimal conditions with a Stroop and a Child Operation Span test. A mean of 169 pupils also did an Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test after lunch over 3 days. In total, 37,413 10-sec observations of classroom learning behavior were performed. In addition, 753 empathy-based stories were written and 78 focus groups were conducted. The pupils had high socioeconomic status. Conclusions: This study will give new insights into which future interventions are needed to improve pupils' school lunch intake and learning. The study will provide valuable information for policy making, not least in countries where the history of school meals is shorter than in some of the Nordic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]