SITH writes:
Nutrition does have a big role in shaping intelligence. Many Indian emigrants to the US and UK seem to be brighter than your average native-born Indian. Wealth isn’t a factor here, it’s cultural. Over here in India, meat consumption per capita is less than 3 kilos per year as against 75 kilos to 100 kilos in the UK and US respectively.
Considering a lot of Indians are vegetarians, that means a lot of children are not getting brain proteins and Vitamin B12 in their diets. That includes children of wealthy Indians. However, as soon as they migrate West, they ignore the sacred taboo of beef and the much improved nutrition makes meaningful difference in intelligence levels.
It’s not that meat isn’t available in India, it’s simply not plentiful, not cheap and still considered a luxury not to be served in dining halls, school canteens and workplaces. Most Indians who do eat meat may have it once or twice a month, that too usually chicken. Many children have an aversion to milk and lactose products which means they’re totally weaned of animal products in their growth and upbringing.
I can tell that from experience. I had spent a month in Uzbekistan 5 years ago and ate nothing else but meat because it was really cheap at less than 50 US cents per meal. In India, a similar portion size would cost me $10-15.
Now that’s a poor country but people in Uzbekistan eat meat morning, noon and night. Average wage is among the least in Asia but the people look much better fed than your anorexic Hindu Indians. They’re taller, more good looking and intelligent. Uzbek tour guides speak better English than Indian tour guides and they happen to be bilingual in Russian or trilingual in Persian.
And also some Hindi thrown in as they watch a lot of Bollywood there. I mean it requires some intelligence to know three disparate languages with equal fluency and still having to work as a tour guide. In India, that bastard would be a senior manager in a major software company, given the right environment. Just saying.
Indian families and mothers dumb down to their kids by weaning them from much essential protein, Omega 3 fatty acids and essential minerals-vitamins diet, a great disservice to their mental and physical growth.
In previous posts I noted that careful studies have shown that South Asian immigrants to the West (US and UK) who had measured IQ’s of ~82-83 (82.5) gave birth to children who had had IQ’s ~10.5 points higher than their parents. The early figures for the US for South Asian immigrants were 90 IQ for the US and 96 IQ for the UK. These figures are older, before the mass movement of South Asian knowledge workers to the West.
A 10.5 point IQ rise in the children of South Asian immigrants to the West is certainly a curiosity. Various factors have been posited, including improved education, better nutrition and the increased complexity of life in the modern West. Based on the comments of this Indian commenter, I would say that nutrition may well be a significant figure in that IQ rise.
Note that the IQ rise is not from moving to the West, but instead from being born and raised on the West. There is something about being born and raised in the West that seems to raise the IQ’s of many 3rd World types.
