Determinants of nutritional status, students’ learning achievement and physical activity: a cross sectional study in Jayapura City, Papua, Indonesia

Optimal learning achievement is often obtained through the consumption of nutritious and balanced food, which prevents poor nutritional statuses. This is particularly relevant to Junior High School students aged 12-15 years, who are more prone to experience malnutrition. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate determinants of students’ learning achievement according to nutritional status, nutritional knowledge, students’ diet, physical activity, and learning interest. This was a descriptive correlation cross-sectional study. Three hundred and fifty Junior High School students in Jayapura Municipality, Papua Province, Indonesia was involved as sample in this study. The study sample were taken by accidental sampling method. The primary data (knowledge of nutrition, diet, physical activity, interest in learning, nutritional status, and learning achievement) and secondary data were obtained from relevant sources and analyzed using frequency distribution analysis and statistical path analysis tests. The results showed the indirect effect of exogenous variables on the endogenous, where nutritional knowledge and students diet influenced nutritional status (p-value = 0.001), but physical activity had no impact (p-value = 0.167). Meanwhile, the direct effect of exogenous variables on the endogenous showed that nutritional knowledge, interest in learning, and nutritional status influenced students’ achievement (p-value = 0.001). Thus, nutritional status plays a significant role in determining students’ learning achievement. Nutrition knowledge and students diet indirectly affect learning achievement through nutritional status. Nutritional status, nutritional knowledge, and interest in learning directly affect the learning achievement of junior high school students. It is important to improve nutritional status through nutritional knowledge as well as students’ diet, therefore this would eventually improve learning achievement. Keywords: nutrition status, students, achievement, physical activity, interest in learning