Diet and Learning

Dear Colleagues,

Learning is a life-long process. Children are expected to adopt the behaviors acceptable to their social environments and perform increasingly difficult academic skills as they get older. Adults must learn and perform new tasks in their work and ever-changing life environment. While the saying “old dogs can’t learn new tricks” may have been the accepted norm in the past, globalization and continually developing technologic advances mandate that individuals continue to learn new skills even into the advanced years of life. However, many children and adults struggle with learning and one possible contributor to this challenge is likely associated with dietary intake habits. Diets rich in sugar, fat, and sodium but low in dietary fibers, high-quality protein, and essential fatty acids are consumed by children and adults worldwide.

Despite the fact that the adverse effects of the “Western” diet patterns on our physical health, such as metabolic disorders (obesity, diabetes and hypertension) are well known, little is known about the effects of dietary intake patterns on our ability to learn and perform cognitive tasks. It stands to reason that diet affects human’s ability to learn in at least two ways: (1) the physical make-up of the brain matter and (2) the nutrients provided to fuel and support the brain’s processing ability. Other nutritional and non‐nutrient substances in food, such as nutraceuticals, active metabolites, additives, and preservatives, may also have protective or harmful effects on brain function.

The objective of this Special Issue on “Dietary Intake and Learning” is to publish selected papers detailing specific aspects of diet and nutrition and people’s ability to learn and/or perform related tasks. Particularly, papers (reviews, epidemiologic/clinical/experimental studies) examining the role of specific nutrients and non‐nutrient substances present in food on learning in humans are sought.

Dr. Sibylle Kranz
Dr. Julia Blodgett
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Healthy Diets
• Dietary intake
• Child Nutrition
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Protein, Dietary Fibers 
• Cognition and Learning
• Attention and Executive Functioning
• Academic Performance/School Achievement
• On-task behaviors
• Sugars/Added sugars