A new study claimed that, Children who eat a healthy diet may have better reading skills in the first three years of school.

The study conducted by the researchers of University of Jyvaskyla in Finland and University of Eastern Finland, includes 161 children aged between six and eight years old, and followed up on them from the first grade to the third grade in school.

The researchers analyzed quality of their diet using food diaries, and their academic skills with the help of standardized tests.

The NDTV reported, the closer the diet followed the Baltic Sea Diet and Finnish nutrition recommendations high in vegetables, berries, fruit, fish, whole grain, and unsaturated fats and low in red meat, saturated fat and sugary products the healthier it was considered.

According to the study, children whose diet was rich in fruit, vegetables, berries, fish, unsaturated fats, whole grain and low in sugary products, did better in tests measuring reading skills than their peers with a poorer diet quality.

Researcher Eero Haapala, said that, "Another significant observation is that the associations of diet quality with reading skills were also independent of many confounding factors, such as socio-economic status, physical activity, body adiposity and physical fitness."

The study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition suggested that, a healthy diet seems to be an important factor in supporting learning and academic performance in children.

By making healthy choices every meal, it is possible to promote a healthy diet and enhance diet quality, researchers said.

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Nandini