An analysis of Maldivian diet for omega-3 fatty acid and its association with cognitive performance and academic scores of high school children / Ghaliba Jaleel

Abstract
The main of this thesis is to identify the level of omega-3 fatty acid content in the Maldivian diet and find out if there is any relation to it with cognitive and academic performance of high school children. A quantitative cross sectional survey method was used as a research design using two self- administered questionnaires one to determine the IQ level and the second to identify the dietary intake of omega-3 fatty from a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFO). The questionnaire also included demographic factors and GPA calculated from the marks they got in their last semester results. The participants include children studying at Villa International High School (VIHS) and Centre for Higher Secondary School (CHSE) in the year 2015 selected using stratified sampling.
It was found that among the 208 participants, majority with a count of 37.5 % from the sample were taking the acceptable amount of omega 3 fatty acid in their diet. Furthermore tuna provides the most amount of omega 3 fatty acid with a mean value of 0.38 g/ day The majority of the respondents have an average IQ (32.3%). When GPA scores were analyzed it was concluded that more than half of the children of this group have high GPA scores (52.6%).