The relationship between student health and academic performance: Implications for school psychologists

Children who are unhealthy are at higher risk for school problems than students who are free from medical problems. Students with poor health have a higher probability of school failure, grade retention, and dropout. The relationship between student health and academic success is complex. Common manageable factors of student health are nutrition, maintaining healthy weight, and physical fitness. Through a comprehensive literature review the relationships among school achievement and nutrition, maintaining healthy weight, and physical fitness are examined. Furthermore, the efficacy of educational programs to improve nutrition, maintain healthy weight, and increase physical fitness is evaluated. The complexity of the relationship among variables is presented and areas for future research and practice for school psychologists are described. The research adopted meta-analysis model to investigate the relationship between these two phenomena. In the meta-analysis, ۱۳ independent studies were included, and their data were combined to display effect sizes. According to the result of the research, it was indicated that there was a positive relationship between mental health and academic achievement. Also, it was revealed that there was no significant relationship within sub-group variation in the relationship between mental health and academic achievement in terms of year of publication, publication type, community, and sample size

کلیدواژه ها:

educational psychology ، academic performance ، students' health ، education