Abstract
Breakfast is an important source of key nutrients in the diet. For this reason, the aim of this review was to investigate the associations between breakfast consumption and daily micronutrients intake in both children and adolescents (aged 2–18 years). A peer-reviewed systematic search was conducted in three datasets (PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane Library) in February 2020 in English and Spanish. Two independent reviewers evaluated 3188 studies considering the AXIS critical appraisal and PRISMA methodologies. Meta-analysis was carried out comparing results according to type of breakfast consumed (Ready to eat cereals (RTEC) breakfast or other types of breakfast) and breakfast skipping. Thirty-three articles were included in the systematic review (SR) and 7 in the meta-analysis. In the SR, we observed that those children and adolescents who usually consume RTEC at breakfast had a higher consumption of B-vitamins than those not consuming RTEC at breakfast. Breakfast consumers had a higher mineral intake (iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and iodine) than breakfast skippers. In the Meta-Analysis, RTEC consumers had significantly higher vitamin C intake than breakfast skippers (Standard Mean Difference (SMD), −4.12; 95% confidence intervals (CI): −5.09, −3.16). Furthermore, those children who usually consume breakfast had significantly higher daily intake of calcium than breakfast skippers (SMD, −7.03; 95%CI: −9.02, −5.04). Our review proposes that breakfast consumption seems to be associated with higher daily micronutrients intake than breakfast skippers.
Highlights
Breakfast is extensively recognized as an important component of a healthy lifestyle and represents an important source of key nutrients in the diet for both adults and young population groups [1,2,3,4,5], showing several benefits of its consumption [2,3,4]
The most important finding was the association between breakfast consumption and a higher daily vitamins and minerals intake in both children and adolescents
In agreement with our systematic review (SR), our meta-analysis presents similar results, breakfast consumers had a higher consumption of iron, calcium and magnesium
Summary
Breakfast is extensively recognized as an important component of a healthy lifestyle and represents an important source of key nutrients in the diet for both adults and young population groups [1,2,3,4,5], showing several benefits of its consumption [2,3,4]. Breakfast consumption showed a protective effect against obesity and overweight [7]; for this reason, breakfast consumption is important because of its inverse association with body fat [8,9]. Previous authors observed that children with obesity were more likely to skip breakfast [9,10,11], and these children had a high risk of chronic diseases as type 2 diabetes [12,13,14], dyslipidemia or cardiovascular diseases [7,8,15]. Some studies observed that in both children and adolescents, breakfast consumption has a positive effect on cognitive performance [21]. Breakfast is the meal that they most frequently skipped [22,23]
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