Breakfast Habits among Schoolchildren in the City of Uruguaiana, Brazil

Summary

This article describes the breakfast habits and the factors related to schoolchildren in a city of Brazil (Uruguaiana). To this end, a transcultural adaptation was performed of a questionnaire validated in Spain, and 470 boys and girls from twelve schools were interviewed.

Abstract

Breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, and omitting it is associated with a greater probability of overweight and school absenteeism. The eating habits constituted in children depend on social, educational and economic factors, and they usually perpetuate into adulthood. For this reason, the most propitious stage for health promotion interventions on healthy nutrition is childhood. Specifically, in Brazil, malnutrition is relevant in children from low-income families although, currently, there are few studies that relate nutrition with the social factors. In this study, a reliability analysis of the Eating Habits of the School Population questionnaire was conducted, and the items referring to the breakfast habits and to some sociodemographic variables were selected. Subsequently, a total of 470 fourth grade pupils self-completed the questionnaire in 12 schools in Uruguaiana (Brazil). More than 50% of the mothers and more than 70% of the fathers worked in diverse areas of services and sales in stores or supermarkets. With regards to the hypothesis contrast, a significant relation was observed between the frequency of having breakfast with the father or the mother and having had breakfast (p < 0.001). This type of study favors a population analysis for the subsequent design and execution of health promotion activities.

Introduction

Obesity, as a consequence of unhealthy nutrition and of a sedentary lifestyle, represents a priority in global public health^1,2. There are yet other factors which indirectly affect obesity, like economic, social and educational determinants³. For this reason, the need arises for health promotion interventions in the field of healthy nutrition, the school age being the most propitious stage, since the habits adopted in childhood usually perpetuate into adulthood⁴.

Breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day; according to i....

Protocol

The research obtained authorization from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Unipampa. During the whole process of data collection, children’s anonymity was guaranteed and the ethical principles for medical research in human beings described in the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki were applied²³.

1. Design of the research instrument

1. Design a first draft of the questionnaire to meet the objective of the study (Supplementary File 1). This questionnaire should contain questions about break....

Results

The results related to the consistency and reliability of the questionnaire items, culturally adapted, and were obtained in a total of 55 questionnaires coming from the selected school. Thus, in the first measurement, the mean score obtained by the participants on the item referring to the weekly frequency of having breakfast with the parents was 1.36 (SD = 1.09), whereas in the second measurement, this mean value was 1.38 (SD = 1.46). Note that in the first measurement, 50.9% [95% CI = 37.1‒64.6] of the participants fel.......

Discussion

This study describes the profiles of schoolchildren with regards their breakfast eating habits. It allows us to approach the possible factors that are involved in omitting breakfast. These data provide knowledge of the population to conduct a future health educational program in this collective group.

One of the limitations of the study was the fact that the questionnaire is not validated in the Portuguese language, but in Spanish. For this reason, a transcultural adaptation was conducted into.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

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