Breakfast, food consumption pattern and nutritional status of students in public secondary schools in Kwara state, Nigeria

Abstract

Breakfast as the first meal of the day is one of the most skipped meals by adolescent students. Several research studies indicated that unhealthy food consumption and breakfast skipping contribute to low glyceamic level, poor cognition and academic performance as well as increasing prevalence of poor nutritional status among children (5-19) years. This study determined prevalence of breakfast and food consumption pattern and nutritional status of students in public secondary schools. This study’s design was cross-sectional and multistage random sampling was used to select 515 participants, (343 girls and 172 boys) from 8 public secondary schools in study area. Self- reported 24 h recall dietary questionnaire was used to collect data on breakfast and food consumption of participants. Digital bathroom scale and stadiometer were used to collect data on weight and height of participants. Data were cleaned, coded and analyzed using (SPSS Version 20) and WHO anthroplus software. Results indicated that 54.0% of participants were (15/6-18/5) years/months, 77% consumed breakfast daily and 52% added (1-2) teaspoons of sugar daily to beverages. Furthermore, participants mostly consumed refined carbohydrates such as doughnut and biscuits (2.36±0.99 times per week), while mostly consumed fat and oil such as vegetable oil in soup (2.54±0.96 times per week), mostly consumed snacks such as fish pies and fish rolls (2.71±0.87 times per week), while mostly consumed protein such as eggs (2.15±0.69 times per week) and mostly consumed fruit such as pawpaw (2.56±0.89 times per week). Overall Nutritional status indicated that underweight was 29.1%, overweight was 4.7%, obesity was 0.2 and 66.0% were of normal weight. Furthermore, Nutritional status for both boys and girls indicated that underweight was (47.7 and 19.8%), overweight was (0.6 and 6.7%), obese was (0 and 0.3%) and normal weight was (51.7 and 73.2%), respectively. Relationship between food consumption and nutritional status of participants was positive but not significant (r = 0.012, p = 0.785). Analysis of variance showed positive significant relationship (p = 0.001) between food consumption and nutritional status. Despite that majority of participants consumed breakfast, the participants low frequency of food consumption is still of concern and this may influence their nutritional status negatively. Parents and other stakeholders should encourage breakfast consumption by participants as well as the consumption of nutritious food in order to meet their daily dietary allowance.