Eating for A\'s: A Delicious

Eating for a's: A Delicious 12-Week Nutrition Plan to Improve Your Child's Academic and Athletic Performance

Alexander Schauss, Arnold Meyer, Barbara Friedlander Meyer

Year Published: 1991

Publisher: Pocket Books

Thesis Statement and Literary Introduction

This book report reviews the work of noted author and doctor, Dr. Alexander Schauss, et al., in his work "Eating for a's: A Delicious 12-Week Nutrition Plan to Improve Your Child's Academic and Athletic Performance." This book was originally published in 1991, in collaboration with Barbara Friedlander Meyer and Arnold Meyer. In this report, an overview of the book's general concept will be given, followed by a background of "why" the book was written. Additionally, the particulars of the program will be highlighted, touching upon the week by week guidelines of the dietary changes that the program requires. Salient concepts are then discussed, drawn from the major ideas that the author incorporates into the book, including scrutiny of the conversational tone the authors take with the intended reader, a note on children's intake of sugar, and the relationship between the diet, the brain, concentration, and improvements in academics and athletics. Finally, this report will offer a conclusion as well as a comment on the efficacy of these types of approaches espoused by nutrition books such as "Eating for a's."

Concept and Background

At a glance, the concept of the book "Eating for a's" is founded on the idea that a diet that is both complete and rich in nutrients will improve a child's academic and athletic performance. The basis for this hypothesis that the author(s) used for the book lays in the outcome of the largest nutrition study ever conducted, involving 800,000 students of all grade levels and demographic profiles, in 803 schools. The study was an uninterrupted time series model, taking place in the New York City Public Schools. The researchers were testing whether an improved diet (increased nutritional density, high fiber, low sugar, and low nutrient 'empty' foods), would increase the students' academic performance. The data was collected from scores of standardized tests, the results of the data showed a statistically significant increase in the test scores, which in turn validated the hypothesis of the research study -- that an improved diet would improve academic performance. In the book "Eating for a's," Schauss and his collaborators developed an eating program that parents could follow in order to improve their own children's performance, both in academics and athletics. Inherent in the paradigm of the authors approach to designing the book, is the conceptualization that diets of children are sub-par.

Program Highlights