Nutritional Status With Short-term Memory in School-aged Children

Abstract

Introduction: The problem of double nutrition includes undernutrition and overnutrition, often found in elementary school children. Nutritional problems in childhood will cause disturbances in children’s cognitive abilities, especially in remembering. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between nutritional status and shortterm memory in 5th grade school-aged children at one of the Elementary schools in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Methods: This research design is non-experimental with a correlation method and cross-sectional approach. A total of 111 respondents were chosen with simple random sampling. Data collection used observation sheets for nutritional status and questionnaire sheets for short-term memory. Results: Chi-square test SPSS statistical test showed that p < 0.001 (α = 0.05) where H1 was accepted, meaning that there was a significant relationship between nutritional status and short-term memory in school-aged children at one of the Elementary schools in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. There were 65 respondents with normal nutritional status and 63 respondents with high short-term memory. Moreover, a good nutritional status of the child and a good neurological function of the child’s brain, impact the ability to remember. Conclusion: There is a correlation between nutritional status and short-term memory in school-aged children. Most of the respondents have nutritional status and short-term memory in the normal category and high category at the age of elementary school children. In line with the conclusion, the school is expected to periodically monitor nutritional status through UKS (School Health Unit).