Prevalence of breakfast skipping among children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study.

BACKGROUND: Interventions to promote breakfast consumption are a popular strategy to address early life inequalities. It is important to understand the epidemiology of children and adolescents who skip breakfast so that interventions and policy can be appropriately considered. This study investigated the prevalence of breakfast skipping among a contemporary, population-wide sample of children and adolescents in Australia. METHODS: Participants were grade 4-12 students (n = 71,390, 8-18 years) in South Australian government (public) schools who took part in the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. The prevalence of breakfast skipping (never, sometimes, often, or always) was calculated for the overall sample and stratified by gender, school grade, socioeconomic status and geographical remoteness. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative risk ratio of sometimes, often, and always skippers compared with never skippers, according to demographic characteristics. RESULTS: Overall, 55.0% of students reported never skipping breakfast, 17.4% reported sometimes skipping, 18.0% reported often skipping, and 9.5% reported always skipping breakfast. Skipping breakfast was more prevalent among females, students in senior grades, and those living in socioeconomically disadvantaged and regional and remote areas. Analyses disaggregated by gender revealed that grade level gradients in breakfast skipping were more marked among females compared to males. CONCLUSIONS: Breakfast skipping among children and adolescents appears considerably more prevalent than previous research suggests. Drivers of breakfast skipping across population sub-groups need to be explored to better inform strategies to promote breakfast consumption.

Breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional engagement at school: a cross-sectional population-level study.

OBJECTIVE: Research on the consequences of breakfast skipping among students tends to focus on academic outcomes, rather than student well-being or engagement at school. This study investigated the association between breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional aspects of school engagement. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study using data from a population-level survey of children and adolescents' well-being and engagement at school. Linear regression with adjustment for confounders was used to estimate the effect of breakfast skipping on school engagement. SETTING: Government schools (i.e. public schools) in South Australia. PARTICIPANTS: The participants were students, Grades 4-12, who completed the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection in 2019. The analysis sample included 61 825 students. RESULTS: Approximately 9·6 % of students reported always skipping breakfast, with 35·4 % sometimes skipping and 55·0 % never skipping. In the adjusted linear regression models, children and adolescents who always skipped breakfast reported lower levels of cognitive engagement (ß = -0·26 (95 % CI -0·29, -0·25)), engagement with teachers (ß = -0·17 (95 % CI -0·18, -0·15)) and school climate (ß = -0·17 (95 % CI -0·19, -0·15)) compared with those who never skipped breakfast, after controlling for age, gender, health, sleep, sadness and worries, parental education, socio-economic status and geographical remoteness. CONCLUSION: Consistent with our hypothesis, skipping breakfast was associated with lower cognitive and emotional engagement, which could be due to mechanisms such as short-term energy supply and long-term health impacts. Therefore, decreasing the prevalence of breakfast skipping could have a positive impact on school engagement.