Can eating fish makes you smarter?

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Chinese netizens recently scoffed at a study showing that children who eat fish once a week have higher IQ scores.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in the US had conducted a study that suggested that omega-3 fatty acids in fish are beneficial to sleep quality, which in turn can boost intelligence, in findings published in the UK-based journal Scientific Reports this week. This is the first time that all three factors have been linked together.

The month-long study involved 541 Chinese children aged nine to eleven, 54 percent of whom were boys.

Researchers found that children who reportedly ate fish at least once a week scored 4.8 points higher on IQ tests, on average, than those who said that they consume fish less frequently or not at all.

The study’s co-author Dr Jennifer Pinto-Martin said that children should be introduced to the fish early on, such as at ten months old, the Telegraph reports.

Children eating lunch at Jialue Primary School in Qionghai City, Hainan Province, December 21. /VCG Photo

The study echoed the old Chinese saying that “eating fish makes people smarter,” but Chinese netizens thought it was a groundless assertion.

“After eating fish for 20 years, I was still not admitted to Tsinghua University (one of the most prestigious universities in the country), ” said user CC100, whose comment has received more than 5,600 thumbs up on the Twitter-like social platform Weibo.

“I have been at the top of my classes, despite not eating any fish,” said user Roushijianshui said.

Another offered an alternative interpretation of the findings. “Kids living in the coastal regions enjoy better chances of receiving a decent education than their peers from the inland. They happen to be those who eat more fish, and that’s probably why they seem smarter,” user 3D Dayu commented on the Shanghai-based website thepaper.cn.

Although fish is relatively common on Chinese dinner tables, the US Food and Drug Administration recommends servings of low-mercury fish for children to avoid metal poisoning.

“A healthy, balanced diet, plenty of exercise and limited computer and screen time can all help kids sleep better and do better in school,” Samantha Heller told the US-based broadcast television network CBS. Heller, who was not involved in the study, is a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center.