Breakfast consumption in primary school children from cosi portugal 2010 study

Duarte, D.; Ramos, C.; Carvalho, M.A.; Rito, Ana

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/2095

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Introduction: Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day. Given the association of childhood obesity with less frequent breakfast consumption and since Portuguese studies on this subject are still scarce, the present study assesses breakfast consumption among Portuguese school age children and its association with obese and overweight children. Methods: The analysis was undertaken from data of the COSI Portugal 2010 study. Breakfast consumption (defined as the consumption of food, and beverage taken before school time) and place where it was held, was obtained from 4064 children aged between 6 to 8 years from a National representative sample of 189 primary schools. IOTF criteria was used to classify children´s nutritional status. For this study, descriptive and analytic statistics were used. The significance level was set at p <0.05. Results: 95.1% of the children had breakfast every day at home. Most children took breakfast at home (95.9%). Concerning the food eaten in this meal, the study showed that most of the children (87.7%) consumed milk/yogurt/cheese, and only 2.0% had fruit. Children, who did not have breakfast, had higher prevalence of overweight and obesity (33.2% and 14.8%, respectively) compared with the ones that took breakfast (26.0% and 9.0%, respectively). These differences were statistically significant (p <0.05). Conclusion: This study suggests that children who do not consume breakfast, appears, itself, to be associated positively with obesity. Given rising obesity rates in children, public health advocates would do well to renew their emphasis on the importance of a good breakfast.