Abstract
The prevalence of underweight among young women is a serious international health issue. However, the evidence on how being underweight negatively affects brain health and cognition is still unclear. This study investigated the association between underweight status, academic performance, and neurocognitive control in young Japanese women using a cross-sectional design. We analyzed the academic performance of female undergraduates, comparing underweight and healthy-weight groups (n = 43; age 18–23 years, M = 21.1, SD = 1.3) based on their grade point average (GPA). We also analyzed their error-related negativity (ERN), an electrophysiological measure that potentially reflects academic performance, during an arrowhead version of the flanker task to assess cognitive control of action monitoring. Participants with a low body mass index were found to have lower GPAs. Furthermore, the underweight students exhibited smaller ERN amplitudes, which indicates decreased cognitive control in action monitoring. These findings suggest that a healthy weight status is essential for effective cognitive functioning and academic success in young adult women, among whom being underweight is a serious health problem.
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The data supporting this study’s findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Mohamed Aly: Data curation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing—original draft. Toru Ishihara: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. Suguru Torii: Conceptualization, Data curation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing—review & editing. Keita Kamijo: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Roles/Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.
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Aly, M., Ishihara, T., Torii, S. et al. Being underweight, academic performance and cognitive control in undergraduate women. Arch Womens Ment Health 27, 249–258 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-023-01410-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-023-01410-4