Research Process
The mediating role of sleep in the fish consumption – cognitive functioning relationship is a research that was carried out by Jianghong Liu among other scholars (Liu et al., 2017). The research problem of the study was the fact that although there was an association of higher fish consumption with better cognition abilities among children at the time the idea of the research was born, the mediating pathways had not been well delineated. The purpose of the research study was hence to provide knowledge on the relationship between fish consumption, sleep and cognitive abilities in children. The findings would enable the promotion of healthy dietary habits to both children and adolescents by the public health.
Three hypotheses were used in the research study. The first hypothesis sought to assess whether there was an association between fewer sleep disturbances and higher scores in IQ in school children who consumed fish more frequently. The second hypothesis aimed at assessing if the relationship between sleep; IQ and more frequent consumption of fish was accounted for by economic and social confounds. Assessing whether the quality of sleep mediates the relationship between the amount of fish consumed and IQ scores were the other hypothesis in the research study.
The study applied longitudinal research design to collect data from 541 Chinese school children (46% girls and 54% boys) of twelve years of age. All the hypotheses developed were accepted. However, in the third hypothesis, the research found that sleep quality was not a mediator of the connection between fish consumption and IQ score performance. The overall conclusion of the research study was that Omega-3 fatty acid acids found in fish are essential dietary nutrients that yield positive outcomes, especially to children’s health. The study also concluded that quality sleep partially mediated the relationship between the amount of fish consumed and cognitive outcomes.