Oxford Brookes University Babylab

Why food skills belong in the school curriculum – not left to chance at home

by Karen L. Vaughan
Researcher in Nutrition, University of Leeds

One in ten children aged seven to nine years is living with obesity in Europe. In England, childhood obesity rises from around 10% of children in reception to around 22% by year six. While we know there are many complex and inter-connected biological, social and environmental causes of childhood obesity, a good start is to tackle this with what we know works: better diets are linked to better health.

Studies have shown that healthy diets in children are associated with better physical health. High quality diet patterns, containing whole foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, are linked with better mental health in early adolescence. We also know that poor dietary patterns and childhood obesity are linked with cardiovascular disease in adulthood.

One important but neglected way to encourage children to eat better diets with fresh fruits and vegetables is to teach them cooking skills. My recent research with colleagues has found that that younger children with more experience of learning food skills tend to have slightly higher fruit and vegetable consumption.

Preparing meals from scratch involves more fruits and vegetables, which are rich in the nutrients and fibre we need to keep us healthy. Children can learn vital food skills at a young age – the earlier the better to shape future habits and behaviour.

In our study involving 19,736 European children aged from six to nine years, we found that children who were able to able to peel fruit and vegetables with a peeler were 15% less likely to have obesity. However, overall, our analysis showed that children who participated in more food preparation skills at home had a slightly higher risk of having obesity.

Skills at school

This doesn’t mean that cooking at home causes obesity. Correlation is not causation. Reverse causation is also possible. Children who are already living with obesity may have food-seeking appetite behaviour, and are therefore more interested in helping with meals at home. On the other hand, when parents prepare food at home with children, this might include cooking foods high in sugar and fat, such as cakes.

This is why learning food skills at school is important. In Japan, the Shokuiku programme makes diet and food a key and integrated part of the curriculum. Japan has a strong nutrition education policy linked to school meals, and has an obesity prevalence of 4.4% for young people aged five to 19, compared to the world prevalence for this age group of 8.2%.

It is easy to assume this learning should happen at home, but that relies on parents having the time, confidence and knowledge to teach it. Many do not. Without structured support, the gap only widens.

Schools already treat some life skills as essential. Swimming, for example, has mandated hours, clear outcomes and national expectations. Children are required to swim for 25 metres by age 11, and schools are given guidance on how much lesson time should be devoted to swimming.

Food skills have none of this, despite their long-term impact on health. The World Cancer Research Fund recommends five hours of nutrition and food skills education a week, but this is unrealistic. Schools need cooking equipment, food for cooking lessons, training for teachers to deliver whole class cooking lessons and more time available in the curriculum.

A more achievable approach would be around 24 hours of food skills teaching each year in primary and lower secondary school – for example 12 two-hour lessons across the 39-week school year. Regular, practical sessions focused on preparing simple savoury dishes, especially those using vegetables, would build confidence, familiarity and healthier habits. Skills such as peeling, chopping and cooking are not luxuries. They are foundations for long-term wellbeing.

The national curriculum for food teaching in England was last updated in 2015. Since then, evidence on children’s food skills has grown, but policy has not kept pace. Children acquire skills through observation, practice and reinforcement, building up competence as they repeat tasks.

This is especially relevant for nutrition education, since children acquire food skills in a complex learning environment shaped by their perceived cooking confidence and the support they receive from parents and teachers.

If we want healthier diets, we must prioritise skills as well as knowledge. A shift towards a skills-based curriculum would equip children to navigate their food environment, with benefits that last far beyond the classroom.

Source: https://theconversation.com/why-food-skills-belong-in-the-school-curriculum-not-left-to-chance-at-home-279262

Why food skills belong in the school curriculum – not left to chance at home Schools already treat some life skills, such as swimming, as essential.

New brain study reveals speech learning works differently than we thought

Speaking may be more about what the brain hears and feels than how it moves—a finding that could transform speech recovery after stroke.

McGill University; Nishant Rao, Rosalie Gendron, Timothy F. Manning, David J. Ostry.

Learning a new language or recovering the ability to speak may rely less on the brain's movement centers than scientists once believed. New research suggests that regions involved in processing sound and physical sensations play a much larger role in speech learning and memory.

The study, conducted by researchers at McGill University and the Yale School of Medicine, could reshape scientific understanding of how speech is learned and influence the design of future speech recognition and brain-based communication technologies.

Sensory Brain Regions Take Center Stage

For years, researchers have generally assumed that learning and remembering the complex movements required for speech depended primarily on motor areas of the brain. Those regions control the movements of the face, mouth, and vocal tract that make speaking possible.

The new findings point in a different direction. Instead of highlighting motor regions as the main driver of speech learning, the research suggests that auditory and somatosensory systems are critical for acquiring and retaining new speech patterns.

"Sensorimotor neuroscience has traditionally focused on frontal motor areas as the principal drivers of movement. This study changes that understanding by showing that human speech learning is extensively sensory in nature," said David Ostry, Professor of Psychology at McGill University.

The results may also help guide the development of emerging brain-speech technologies. Such systems could one day help restore communication abilities after stroke by incorporating sensory processes to improve performance and usability.

Testing Speech Learning With Brain Stimulation

To investigate how different brain regions contribute to speech learning, the researchers first altered participants' speech in real time and played the modified speech back through headphones. This approach encouraged participants to adapt their speech patterns, creating a form of speech motor learning.

The team then used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive method of brain stimulation, to temporarily disrupt activity in three key brain regions involved in speech: the auditory cortex, the somatosensory cortex, and the motor cortex.

Researchers evaluated retention of the newly learned speech patterns 24 hours later.

Their prediction was straightforward. If a particular brain region was essential for learning and storing speech-related memories, disrupting that area should reduce retention. If the region was not critical, retention should remain unchanged.

The results strongly supported the importance of sensory processing. When activity in either the auditory cortex or somatosensory cortex was disrupted, participants showed significantly poorer retention of the speech movements they had learned. In contrast, disrupting the motor cortex had little effect on retention.

"Our study challenges the assumption that new speech memories are solely reliant on changes in motor areas of the brain. Instead, it underscores the importance of changes in auditory and somatosensory brain areas in shaping how we learn to speak," said study co-author Nishant Rao, Associate Research Scientist at Yale University.

Brain Plasticity and Future Stroke Therapies

The research is part of a larger effort to understand how plasticity in the brain's sensory systems contributes to learning and long-term memory.

It also builds on previous studies by the same research group involving arm and hand movements. Those studies similarly found that disrupting sensory regions of the brain interfered with the ability to learn and retain new motor skills.

Future work will focus on identifying the specific cortical circuits involved in learning and investigating sensory-based treatments for movement disorders. The researchers are particularly interested in applications for stroke rehabilitation and speech recovery.

About the Study

The study, "Sensory Basis of Speech Motor Learning and Memory," by Nishan Rao, Rosalie Gendron, Timothy Manning and David Ostry, was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The research was funded by the (U.S.) National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260619020514.htm

New brain study reveals speech learning works differently than we thought A new study suggests that learning and remembering speech relies more on how the brain processes sounds and sensations than on the areas that control mouth and face movements. The discovery could reshape speech therapy and help improve future brain-based communication technologies.

Scientists found an early depression clue hidden in children’s eyes

Binghamton University; Kelly A. Gair, Leslie A. Brick, Brandon E. Gibb.

New research from Binghamton University, State University of New York, suggests that depression can influence how children respond to emotional faces, including happy and sad expressions. The study also found that these attention patterns differ depending on whether a child has a family history of depression.

Researchers at Binghamton University's Mood Disorders Institute focus on understanding how depression develops during childhood and adolescence. They investigate how factors such as family history and emotional experiences contribute to future depression risk. By identifying these patterns early, scientists hope to improve efforts to recognize and prevent depression before it becomes more severe.

"Most of the vulnerabilities that we focus on are still developing during this time period," said Brandon Gibb, director of the Mood Disorders Institute and SUNY distinguished professor of psychology. "You can catch things as they're developing, rather than only studying them once they're already there and pretty stable."

How Depression and Attention Influence Each Other

Earlier research has linked depression to greater attention toward sad facial expressions. However, those effects have generally been small, and researchers have not known whether these attention patterns contribute to depression or result from it.

The new study is the first to examine how depressive symptoms and attention biases may influence one another over time in children.

"The real novel piece is that we looked at these transactional relations," said Kelly Gair, a PhD student at Binghamton and lead author of the paper. "Between attentional biases and depressive symptoms, we looked at the way that they were mutually predicting one another across the time points, which is especially novel and hasn't been done before."

To investigate these relationships, Gair, Gibb, and collaborator Leslie A. Brick from the University of New Mexico followed 242 children and their mothers for two years. Participants returned every six months for assessments.

During each visit, children viewed pairs of faces on a screen. One face displayed a neutral expression, while the other showed an emotional expression (happy, sad, or angry). Eye tracking technology measured which faces attracted the children's attention and how long they focused on them.

Children in the study looked at faces conveying different emotions onscreen, and eye-tracking technology recorded where their attention veered. Photo credit: NimStim Set of Facial Expressions (Tottenham et al., 2009).

Family History Shapes Attention to Emotional Faces

The findings showed that increasing depressive symptoms affected children's attention differently depending on their family background.

Among children whose mothers had a history of major depressive disorder, growing depressive symptoms were associated with increased attention to sad faces.

"For those who are already at risk, the more these children experience depression themselves, the more they lose their ability to pull their attention away from the sad things around them," Gibb said.

Gair noted that depression can have a powerful influence on what people notice in their environment.

"We know that when you're depressed, it changes what you pay attention to," Gair said. "Our results suggest that these changes may be more long-lasting and may differ depending on family history. One thought is that for children of mothers with depression, who are exposed to more facial displays of sadness from interactions with their mom, these types of facial expressions become even more salient when they experience depression themselves, so their attention becomes increasingly stuck on sad expressions."

Different Patterns for Lower-Risk Children

The pattern was different among children whose mothers had no history of depression.

When these children experienced increases in depressive symptoms, they tended to spend less time paying attention to happy faces.

"In our lower-risk children, what seems to be happening is that experiences of depression are eroding a protective factor, which is how much they pay attention to happy faces," Gibb said.

Researchers are now continuing to follow these children as they move into adolescence. The goal is to determine whether these attention patterns contribute to a higher likelihood of developing clinical depression later in life.

The study, "Transactional Relations Between Attentional Biases for Affective Stimuli and Depressive Symptoms in Offspring of Mothers With and Without Major Depressive Disorder," was published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260616102214.htm

Scientists found an early depression clue hidden in children’s eyes Depression appears to change what children notice in the faces around them, but the effect depends on family history. Kids with a higher inherited risk became more focused on sadness, while lower-risk children lost some of their natural attention to happy expressions.

Schools should teach children more about how money works

by Narmin Nahidi
Assistant Professor in Finance, University of Exeter

I recently volunteered to teach some lessons in finance to pupils at a primary school. Over six sessions, I spoke to a group of ten and eleven-year-olds about things like value, savings, cost and risk.

The talks were not meant to turn the children into investors, or to teach them to price derivatives or read corporate accounts. They were simply designed to start discussions about everyday financial choices – what it means to spend and borrow money, to compare prices and plan ahead.

I told them that money involves choices and consequences. That if we spend today, we may have less tomorrow. That if we borrow money, there are rules about paying it back. Or that if prices rise, the same amount of money buys less stuff.

These are not advanced financial concepts. They are everyday occurrences.

The children were curious and often more financially alert than I expected them to be. They asked practical questions and responded especially strongly to examples involving everyday choices, such as saving for something they wanted or comparing prices when costs rise.

And the experience left me asking whether children should be being taught more about financial literacy at school as a vital life skill.

After all, rent, mortgages, loans, tax, pensions, savings, inflation, insurance and debt shape the lives of almost every household. A better understanding of how it all works can only be a good thing.

The issue is not that schools do nothing. Financial education already appears in parts of the curriculum in many countries, particularly through mathematics and citizenship lessons. But is this enough?

And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that improving financial literacy should be part of any education system which hopes to prepare young people for life and work in a changing society.

A study in Brazil for example, shows that school-based financial education can improve economic proficiency. And an experiment in Peru suggests that mandatory school-based financial education is highly effective.

By contrast, if financial literacy is left mainly to families, there is evidence that inequality gets passed on. This concern is consistent with “financial socialisation theory”, which shows that children usually get their financial attitudes and habits from their parents.

Financial fix

Of course, financially literate children do not always become financially secure adults. They may still suffer from low wages, high housing costs, insecure work or regional inequality.

But financial literacy can reduce vulnerability. Evidence from US high school education policies links exposure to personal finance education with better economic results for young adults, including fewer debt defaults and higher credit scores.

So a focus on financial education makes sense. It can help young people understand credit, compare prices, question online financial advice, recognise scams, plan savings and make more informed decisions when they start work.

Technology adds another dimension. The financial world that young people encounter is no longer limited to a bank branch or a family conversation at the kitchen table. It is embedded in platforms, apps and algorithms.

Children may be using online banking, contactless payments, subscriptions, buy-now-pay-later products and AI-generated content before they fully understand financial risk.

Teaching young pupils about finance and accounting reminded me that children are often more capable than adults assume. They may not know the terminology, but they understand fairness, choices, value and consequence. These are the foundations of financial reasoning.

If we want more financially resilient societies, we should not wait until young people are opening their first bank account, signing their first rental contract or taking on student debt to give them a decent grounding in understanding the financial world.

It should start much earlier, and governments should be ambitious enough to make financial literacy a core part of every child’s education.

Source: https://theconversation.com/schools-should-teach-children-more-about-how-money-works-285514

Schools should teach children more about how money works Money matters are a vital part of education.

Second pregnancy changes the brain in surprising new ways

Amsterdam University Medical Center; M. Straathof, S. Halmans, P. J. W. Pouwels, E. A. Crone, E. Hoekzema

A second pregnancy changes the brain in ways that are both familiar and distinct from a first pregnancy, according to new research from Amsterdam UMC published in Nature Communications. Building on earlier work showing that a first pregnancy reshapes the brain, the researchers found that each pregnancy leaves its own unique imprint on the maternal brain.

In an earlier study, Elseline Hoekzema and colleagues became the first to demonstrate that pregnancy changes the structure of the human brain. They also showed that pregnancy affects how the brain functions. For this latest research, the team followed 110 women over time. Some were expecting their first child, some were pregnant with their second, and others remained childless. By performing repeated brain scans, the researchers tracked how the brain changed throughout the study.

"With this, we have shown for the first time that the brain not only changes during the first pregnancy, but also during a second," says Hoekzema, head of the Pregnancy Brain Lab at Amsterdam UMC. "During a first and second pregnancy, the brain changes in both similar and unique ways. Each pregnancy leaves a unique mark on the female brain."

Brain Networks Shift in Different Ways

The researchers found that a first pregnancy produced the largest changes in the structure and activity of the brain's Default Mode Network, a system involved in self reflection, social thinking, and other important mental functions.

During a second pregnancy, this same network changed again, although to a lesser degree. Instead, the most noticeable changes occurred in brain networks responsible for directing attention and responding to sensory information.

"It appears that during a second pregnancy, the brain is more strongly altered in networks involved in reacting to sensory cues and in controlling your attention," explains researcher Milou Straathof, who analyzed the data. "These processes may be beneficial when caring for multiple children."

Brain Changes Linked to Maternal Bonding and Mental Health

The study also uncovered a relationship between pregnancy related brain changes and the emotional bond between mother and child. This connection was stronger after a first pregnancy than after a second.

Researchers also identified links between structural changes in the brain and peripartum depression during both first and second pregnancies. According to the team, this is the first evidence that changes occurring in the brain's cortex during pregnancy are associated with maternal depression.

The timing of these associations differed depending on pregnancy history. Among first time mothers, they were most apparent after childbirth. For women expecting a second child, they were more noticeable during pregnancy.

"This knowledge can help to better understand and recognize mental health problems in mothers. It is important that we understand how the brain adapts to motherhood."

Understanding the Maternal Brain

The findings offer new insight into the remarkable adaptability of the maternal brain. Although most women experience one or more pregnancies during their lifetime, scientists are only beginning to understand how pregnancy influences the brain over the long term.

The researchers say these discoveries help fill an important gap in knowledge about women's biology and could eventually improve care for mothers, including efforts to prevent and treat postpartum depression. The study also highlights the brain's remarkable ability to continually adapt to major life experiences such as pregnancy and motherhood.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260711010125.htm

Second pregnancy changes the brain in surprising new ways Researchers found that every pregnancy rewires the brain in its own way, with a second pregnancy bringing a different pattern of changes than the first. The discoveries could lead to better ways to recognize and treat maternal mental health challenges, including peripartum depression.

Why grandparents matter more than ever for children's mental health

With more than 40% of U.S. teenagers reporting ongoing feelings of sadness or hopelessness, one child psychologist believes grandparents may be an important part of the solution.

Kenneth Barish, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill Cornell Medicine, says the decline of extended family involvement has helped fuel what the U.S. Surgeon General has described as a continuing crisis in child and adolescent mental health.

"We did not evolve to raise children with as little extended family and community support as most American parents have now," says Dr. Barish, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. "Children need grandparents, and they always have."

In his new book, The Art and Science of Parenting and Grandparenting, Dr. Barish draws on 40 years of clinical experience, as well as findings from neuroscience, child development studies, and educational programs, to argue that grandparents can play a meaningful role in helping families navigate today's parenting challenges.

Why Purpose Matters for Children's Well-Being

According to Dr. Barish, grandparents can help counter a cultural trend that has increasingly emphasized individual achievement over community and connection.

"Over several decades, America has increasingly become a society of I, not We. In many families and communities, preoccupation with individual achievement has eroded the values of kindness and caring in the lives of our children," he explains.

Research has linked intense achievement pressure to elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, particularly in affluent communities. Dr. Barish argues that children need a stronger sense of purpose that extends beyond personal accomplishments.

"Individual achievement alone is a fragile source of motivation and effort, with a high cost in anxiety and stress," Dr. Barish writes. "Helping others promotes a greater balance in children's emotional lives."

Evidence reviewed by psychologist Jane Piliavin found that helping others is associated with higher self-esteem, lower rates of depression, reduced school dropout rates, improved immune function, and even longer life expectancy.

To encourage these benefits, Dr. Barish recommends volunteering as a family and regularly talking with children, beginning at a young age, about kindness, empathy, and understanding other people's feelings and needs.

He explains: "These conversations strengthen a child's sense of meaning and purpose. They are just as important as making sure kids have done their homework and correcting their mistakes, maybe more."

How Grandparents Support Children's Mental Health

Dr. Barish says grandparents offer more than practical support for parents. They also provide what he describes as 'molecules of emotional health', small but meaningful moments of encouragement, attention, and understanding that help strengthen children's 'emotional immune systems'.

"A child's confident expectation that someone will listen and understand is the best protection against the emotional pathogens they will experience throughout their childhood. "More than anything else, children need someone in their life who listens, who helps them feel less alone, and who teaches them that problems can be solved, relationships can be repaired, and bad feelings do not last forever," Dr. Barish explains.

He also highlights the importance of play, shared enjoyment, and showing genuine enthusiasm for children's interests and goals. These positive interactions can help build emotional resilience and strengthen family relationships.

The Hidden Harm of Excessive Criticism

One of the most common parenting challenges Dr. Barish encounters is not too much praise, but too much criticism.

In his clinical work, he has found that well-intentioned family members often underestimate the negative effects of frequent criticism.

"The most common problem I see in my work with families is not too much praise, but too much criticism," Dr. Barish states.

"Criticism does not motivate children to work harder. Instead, frequent criticism breeds resentment and defiance, and undermines children's initiative and effort."

At the same time, he notes that not all praise is equally beneficial. Drawing on Carol Dweck's concept of a "growth mindset," he encourages adults to focus praise on effort and learning rather than innate ability.

"Praise effort, not intelligence or talent. Praise learning, not grades."

Building Confidence Through Conversation

Dr. Barish acknowledges that raising children often involves managing difficult behavior. In his book, he outlines 21 principles designed to encourage cooperation, based on both scientific research and decades of clinical experience.

Among his recommendations are involving children in collaborative problem solving and giving them opportunities to 'reset', an approach he believes works better than punishment.

Ultimately, Dr. Barish argues that helping children thrive depends less on teaching specific skills and more on fostering emotional strength, confidence, and meaningful relationships.

Dr. Barish explains: "Helping our children and grandchildren succeed in life is less about teaching skills and more about having conversations; less about earning rewards and more about learning to cope with painful feelings; less about clearing a path to success and more about strengthening an inner feeling of confidence and pride. Our children will then work harder, bounce back more quickly, show more caring and kindness toward others, and pursue interests with greater enthusiasm, commitment, and sense of purpose."

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Why grandparents matter more than ever for children's mental health A child psychologist says grandparents are more important than ever as youth mental health challenges continue to rise. He argues that children need supportive relationships, meaningful conversations, and a sense of purpose—not just pressure to achieve. Grandparents can help by listening, encourag...