Assessment of Breakfast Eating Habits and its Association with Cognitive Performance of Early Adolescents (11-13 Years) in Shebedino District, Sidama Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Regular consumption of breakfast is associated with improved cognitive performance and nutrient intake in adolescents. Despite breakfast’s positive attributes, many children go to school without breakfast. The objective of this study was to assess the association between breakfast eating habits and cognitive performance among early adolescents aged 11-13 years old in the study area. Method: A cross sectional study was conducted from June to July 2012. Structured questionnaire was used to capture breakfast eating habits, socio-economic and demographic factors. Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children -II tests was used for cognitive performance measurement. A representative sample size of 211 participants was selected randomly from 4 kebeles. The data was analyzed with SPSS version 16.0 software. Results: Of the 208 interview, 52% were girls while 48% were boys with mean (±SD) age of 12.01±0.82 years. Breakfast skipping prevalence was 42.3%. Regular breakfast eating habits were significantly (P<0.001) associated with Simultaneous scale and Pattern Reasoning. Regular breakfast eating habit and mother education were significantly (P<0.001) associated with Sequential scale explaining 13.7% variation. Regular breakfast eating habits were also significantly associated with Pattern Reasoning explaining 31.6 % variation. Conclusion: Irregular consumption or skipping breakfast and socio-demographic factors have beneficial influence on cognitive performance of adolescents. The important predictors of cognitive performance were breakfast eating habits and maternal education. We recommended that, parents and adolescents should be educated and trained on healthy breakfast eating patterns and good nutrition practices for healthy cognitive development of adolescents.