If you want satisfied, motivated kids - give them a healthy breakfast
Breakfast is indeed one of the most important meals of the day - especially for children - a new study has proved it.
Two major studies published last week, reported that breakfast is indeed one of the most important meals of the day - especially for kids. Skipping breakfast or grabbing a sugary snack instead makes children and adolescence dissatisfied, demotivated and causes them to underachieve in school and in tests. Unfortunately, despite the UK being relatively affluent, we have one of the worse breakfast habits in the world.
The first study, published in the BMC Nutrition Journal reported that children who frequently missed breakfast had lower life satisfaction than those who regularly eat a morning meal. Led by Anglia Ruskin University, the research used information from a major Health Behaviour study involving over 150,000 school children, aged between 10–17 years. It took place between 2017 t0 2018 across 42 countries, including the UK. The estimation of breakfast consumption in the study was gained by asking: “How often do you typically have breakfast (more than a glass of milk or fruit juice)?”. To measure life satisfaction, they used a ladder scale from 0 to 10, with (10) denoting the highest conceivable quality of life, whereas the bottom point (0) represents the worst imaginable quality of life.
The result were very clear and consistent - the highest life satisfaction score was identified in participants who had breakfast daily, whereas the lowest life satisfaction score was observed in children who never had breakfast. Among the 42 countries studied, Portugal had the highest number of children who ate breakfast every day and had the highest levels of life satisfaction. In contrast, the lowest life satisfaction scores were found in children from Romania, who rarely ate breakfast. The UK had the fifth lowest mean life satisfaction scores, behind only Romania, Hungary, Germany and Austria. This new study is another sad reflection on the health status of our children and adolescence in the UK alongside having one of the highest rates of childhood obesity, alcohol and ultra processed food consumption vaping levels.
The senior author of the paper, Lee Smith, Professor of Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University, said: “Our study was wide-ranging and found a consistent association between frequency of breakfast and life satisfaction, and there are several potential reasons for this. There have been previous studies that show low mood among adolescents who have not eaten breakfast and also higher instances of anxiety, stress and depression.
Why breakfast is so important?
It is clear that consuming an adequate breakfast provides the necessary energy, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and other nutrients for optimal cognitive functioning and enhances concentration, memory, and learning ability. A regular routine that includes spending time to eat a good breakfast can also bring structure and a positive tone to the rest of the day.
There is also evidence that eating breakfast signals the body and mind that it's time to wake up and get alert. Along side morning light, eating helps regulate the circadian rhythm. Numerous scientific papers have reported that people who have a poor circadian rhythm are more likely to have obesity, worse sleep patterns, depression, thyroid, hormonal and metabolic disorders which have a substantial impact on quality of life, increased healthcare utilisation, and shortened life expectancy.
Breakfast is not just about quantality but quality
What we eat for breakfast matters as well. A further paper published last month in the Journal of School Psychology confirmed that breakfast is definitely an important meal of the day but they found that the quality of the food had a major influence on academic performance at school.
The study evaluated the breakfast habits of 648 Australian high school students over a school year. Researchers specifically looked at whether the quality of food eaten at breakfast influenced levels of motivation and achievement in subsequent science tests. They indeed found a strong correlation between better quality foods and improved adaptive motivation and higher test results.
They defined a higher quality breakfast as one which had plenty of vegetables, nuts, fruit, dairy/protein, wholegrains, cereals, water, and poor quality foods as sugary drinks, processed meat, fast food take-aways and unhealthy snack foods. These findings were highly statistically significant even when contributory factors were taken into account such as personal, socioeconomic, home, and classroom issues.
Being a father of four myself, I appreciate that getting tired children out of bed in time for school is a struggle in itself, let alone sitting them down long enough for a formal meal. This new data, however, suggest that starting the day with a healthy breakfast is one of the most important things we can do for them, even if this will be a challenge initially.
Although not easy, to encourage kids to eat a healthy breakfast, try to make it fun and engaging by offering a variety of colourful and tasty options. It's a good idea to involve them in the meal preparation process, the evening before, letting them choose or help make their breakfast, which can increase their interest in eating it. Additionally, although difficult, try to keep the atmosphere positive and stress-free, and lead by example by routinely eating a healthy breakfast yourself.