THE RELATION BETWEEN BREAKFAST SKIPPING AND SCHOOLPERFORMANCE IN STUDENT'S

Breakfast skipping is common in Students, but research on the effects of breakfast skipping on school Performance is scarce. This current cross-sectional survey study of 300 Students aged 7-12 years investigatedwhether Students who habitually skip breakfast have lower end of term grades than Students who eat breakfast daily. Additionally, the roles of sleep behavior, namely chronotype, and attention were explored. Results showed that breakfast skippers performed lower at school than breakfast eaters. The findings were similar for younger and older Students and for boys and girls. Students with an evening chronotype were more likely to skip breakfast, but chronotype was unrelated to school performance. Furthermore, attention problems partially mediated the relation between breakfast skipping and school performance. This large-scale study emphasizes the importance of breakfast as a determinantfor school performance. The results give reason to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relation between skipping breakfast, attention, and school performance in more detail.