Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day. Children who eat breakfast are slimmer and do better in school. They demonstrate better memory, get better test scores, are absent from school fewer days, and have better moods. Breakfast skippers weigh more and eat more sweets and soft drinks and fewer fruits and vegetables during the rest of the day. Nutrients found in breakfast foods – calcium (milk), potassium (milk), vitamin C (orange juice), fiber, iron and folic acid (bread or cereal) – are rarely made up during the rest of the day when breakfast is missed. And most breakfast foods are inexpensive.
A recent study from the United Kingdom published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, once again reaffirms that skipping breakfast leads to lower grades. Secondary school children, aged 16 to 18 who regularly skipped breakfast had lower test scores on a national ranking of grades. The UK study is consistent with what we find in the US where 50% of high school students skip breakfast.
Skipping breakfast has a negative effect on learning, especially math, when a child comes to school without eating after a long night without food. Those who eat, on the other hand, have a boost in their ability to learn and perform for as long as 4 hours after breakfast. This would bring most school-age children to lunch which would refuel them for afternoon learning.
Your child’s stomach doesn’t know if it is morning or night. It simply knows it has been without food for many hours and needs to be fed. Sometimes a nontraditional choice – a slice of pizza, bowl of soup, or a toasted cheese sandwich – can break the cycle of breakfast skipping. Ask your child what he would like for breakfast. The key is to get kids to eat in the morning, you can slowly move toward better and better choices.
