Abstract
This study aimed to assess the relationship between breakfast composition and long-term regular breakfast consumption and cognitive function. Participants included 835 children from the China Jintan Cohort Study for the cross-sectional study and 511 children for the longitudinal study. Breakfast consumption was assessed at ages 6 and 12 through parental and self-administered questionnaires. Cognitive ability was measured as a composition of IQ at age 6 and 12 and academic achievement at age 12, which were assessed by the Chinese versions of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales and standardized school reports, respectively. Multivariable general linear and mixed models were used to evaluate the relationships between breakfast consumption, breakfast composition and cognitive performance. In the longitudinal analyses, 94.7% of participants consumed breakfast ≥ 4 days per week. Controlling for nine covariates, multivariate mixed models reported that compared to infrequent breakfast consumption, regular breakfast intake was associated with an increase of 5.54 points for verbal and 4.35 points for full IQ scores (p < 0.05). In our cross-sectional analyses at age 12, consuming grain/rice or meat/egg 6–7 days per week was significantly associated with higher verbal, performance, and full-scale IQs, by 3.56, 3.69, and 4.56 points, respectively (p < 0.05), compared with consuming grain/rice 0–2 days per week. Regular meat/egg consumption appeared to facilitate academic achievement (mean difference = 0.232, p = 0.043). No association was found between fruit/vegetable and dairy consumption and cognitive ability. In this 6-year longitudinal study, regular breakfast habits are associated with higher IQ. Frequent grain/rice and meat/egg consumption during breakfast may be linked with improved cognitive function in youth.
Highlights
Increasing research has demonstrated associations between breakfast consumption and numerous health benefits, including higher overall diet quality, lower cholesterol, lower rates of obesity and cognitive performance [1,2,3]
Given disparities seen between socioeconomic status (SES) and breakfast consumption, with lower SES being linked to increased breakfast skipping [4,5], understanding the nutritional and cognitive benefits of breakfast is important in the development of interventions aimed at improving health and academic outcomes of low-SES children
Assessments and 5.4 point higher on full intelligence quotient (IQ) (FIQ) assessments than those who did not eat breakfast regularly, though no significant difference were seen in performance
Summary
Increasing research has demonstrated associations between breakfast consumption and numerous health benefits, including higher overall diet quality, lower cholesterol, lower rates of obesity and cognitive performance [1,2,3]. Several studies examining the relationship between breakfast and cognition have published mixed findings [6,7,8], demonstrating a need for improved methodology and further evaluation of breakfast composition to evaluate potential nutritional corollaries to observed outcomes. Some found that breakfast consumption improved cognitive performance compared to breakfast omission in children and adolescents [6,7], while others found little or no effect between breakfast consumption and cognition [9,10] These mixed findings suggest that methodological limitations as well as confounding variables may contribute to the lack of consistent findings. It remains unclear if cognitive differences between frequent breakfast consumers and infrequent breakfast consumers decreases, increases, or remains the same over time. Few studies have examined both IQ and school performance, the latter being more likely to demonstrate a longitudinal assessment of student’s cognitive function
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