Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day, and a recent study published on Public Health Nutrition shows that it also helps in performing well in school.
Health experts from Cardiff University said that the result of their study shows that there is a strong connection between kids eating a healthy breakfast and their educational attainment. The researchers examined the relationship between breakfast consumption among 9- to 11-year-old children and their educational performance six to 18 months after.
The research, led by Hannah Littlecott from Cardiff University's Center for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPher), is the largest study to analyze the "longitudinal effects on standardized school performance," per Medical News Today. The study was held at Cardiff University and involved 5,000 school children, aged 9 to 11 years old, from 100 elementary schools. The participants were asked to note the food and drinks they consumed within 24 hours as well as the specific times they ate it.
As a result, the study showed that there is twice the possibility that children who eat breakfast can attain above-average scores in school exams than those who don't. Also, the result showed that one in five children usually eat unhealthy items (e.g., sweets and crisps) for breakfast, and it has no positive effect on doing good in school.
Researchers also found out that breakfast food with a lower glycaemic index gives a positive effect on "cognitive functioning, health, school attendance and academic outcomes." Glycaemic index releases energy steadily throughout the morning.
According to Littlecot, per The Guardian, it is already known that eating breakfast has a positive effect to your health; however, this is the first time that there is a clear relation between school performance and eating a healthy breakfast, offering "the strongest evidence yet of links between aspects of what pupils eat and how well they do at school, which has significant implications for education and public health policy.
Littlecot went on to say, “For schools, dedicating time and resources towards improving child health can be seen as an unwelcome diversion from their core business of educating pupils, in part due to pressures that place the focus on solely driving up educational attainment. But this resistance to the delivery of health improvement interventions overlooks the clear synergy between health and education. Clearly, embedding health improvements into the core business of the school might also deliver educational improvements as well.”
