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Associations between habitual school-day breakfast consumption frequency and academic performance in British adolescents
Since there is evidence that learning is positively affected by breakfast consumption in children, Adolphus, Lawton & Dye (2019) focused on examining the associations between habitual school-day breakfast intake frequency with academic performance among British adolescents. School performance was measured by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), a national academic qualification obtained by most British children/adolescents during secondary education. The 294 participants aged between 16 and 18 (77.2% female) completed a retrospective 7-day food diary and a questionnaire to obtain data on breakfast intake and on their GCSE grades, respectively. Breakfast was defined as any food or drink containing ≥5% of total energy expenditure (TEE) consumed up to 10:00 a.m. on school days. The frequency of breakfast consumption on a normal habitual week was categorized as rare (0-1 school days), occasional (2-3 school days), or frequent (4-5 school days). The results demonstrated that habitual school-day breakfast consumption amongst adolescents was a significant correlate of GCSE achievement, since those “rare” breakfast consumers had a significantly lower capped score and mean point score when compared to frequent breakfast eaters. Moreover, low/middle socio-economic status (SES) adolescents who rarely consumed breakfast were significantly less likely to achieve higher Mathematics grades compared to low/middle SES adolescents who frequently consumed breakfast [adjusted cumulative odds ratio (OR): 0.35, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.17-0.72]. The team of researchers believe these findings offer potential and should be further explored in well controlled studies. [NPID: behavior, breakfast, children, Britain, academic performance, scholastic performance, low income, middle income, income]
Year: 2019
