If students don't eat breakfast properly, there are so many harmful effects

A year's plan starts with spring, and a day's plan starts with the morning. Breakfast provides children with 25%-30% of their energy and nutrients in a day. A study of primary school students found that 18% of them still do not eat breakfast, and 44.8% of them have a poor quality breakfast.

If we miss breakfast, or eat too little or with an unreasonable combination of food, not only will students' nutrition for the day be greatly reduced, but it will also affect the day's learning efficiency and cause harm to health.

1. Affects weight and increases the risk of overweight and obesity. The study found that children who "do not eat breakfast every day" (34.2%) have a significantly higher risk of overweight and obesity than those who "eat breakfast every day" (21.2%). This is mainly because skipping breakfast will cause children to overeat at other meals, especially breakfast and lunch, and consume more high-energy foods.

2. It is related to hypertension in children and adolescents. Among children with hypertension, only 47.6% of students "occasionally eat breakfast." This may be because irregular breakfast eating increases the risk of overweight and obesity, and the study also found that overweight and obesity are risk factors for hypertension.

3. Affecting the learning efficiency in the morning. Not eating breakfast will make the body hungry and unable to concentrate on class and study, which greatly reduces the learning efficiency and may even cause hypoglycemia and coma.

So how should we prepare children's breakfast? According to the recommendations of the Chinese Nutrition Society's "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese School-Age Children (2022)", we should ensure that children eat breakfast every day and eat a good breakfast. Every morning, we should allow enough time for eating, about 15-20 minutes, between 6:30 and 8:30 in the morning.

Although the preparation and eating time of breakfast are relatively rushed, we still try to make the food variety for children's breakfast diverse, paying attention to the changes in taste and color matching, so as to improve children's appetite.

A high-quality breakfast should include three or more of the four types of food: cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, animals, and milk, beans and nuts.

For each type of food, we can have the following forms:

1. Cereals and potatoes: meat buns, vegetable buns, vegetable and meat buns, steamed rolls, cakes, bread, noodles, porridge, rice noodles, purple sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, etc.

2. Vegetables and fruits: all kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits. Considering the short breakfast time, you can make vegetable and meat porridge, vegetable and meat noodles, vegetable and meat wontons, etc. Fruits should be seasonal and can be selected according to family preferences.

3. Animal food: fish, shrimp, meat, eggs, etc. can be cooked alone, using the simple method of steaming, or they can be cooked together with cereals, potatoes, and vegetables.

4. Milk, beans and nuts: Breakfast can be paired with milk, yogurt, soy milk, tofu pudding, etc. Dried tofu can be cooked with vegetables. Walnuts, peanuts and other nuts can be cooked into porridge or made into rice paste with soybeans and various types of rice.

A reasonable breakfast is the key to a day's nutrition, but considering the time issue, you can make full use of various cooking tools, balance the four major types of food, and make a nutritious, delicious and simple breakfast.

References:

[1] Some pictures are from the Internet.

[2] Zhang Man, Wang Xing, Yang Sufang, et al. Current status of breakfast behavior among senior primary school students in agricultural and pastoral areas of Qinghai Province[J]. Chinese School Health, 2023.

[3] Tian Fang, Wang Yuxia. Factors affecting hypertension among children and adolescents aged 6 to 14 years in Zhengzhou[J]. Chinese Journal of Health Engineering, 2022(002):021.

[4] Huang Xuehua, Xie Weiguang, Huang Anzhong, et al. Epidemic characteristics and influencing factors of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.

Analysis of factors[J]. South China Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2023.

Author: Niu Yang

Instructors: Feng Yi, Tang Qingya

Department of Clinical Nutrition, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine

Project source: Shanghai Health Science Popularization Youth Talent Project (JKKPYC-2022-06)