Breakfast habits among adolescents and their association with daily energy and fish, vegetable, and fruit intake: a community-based cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES: To investigate breakfast eating habits on daily energy and fish, vegetable, and fruit intake in Japanese adolescents.

METHODS: This study was completed as part of the Shunan Child Health Cohort Study. Two types of questionnaires, one on lifestyle habits and the other a brief-type, self-administered questionnaire on diet history, were administered to second-year junior high school students (1,876 boys and 1,759 girls) in Shunan City, Yamaguchi, Japan. The different breakfast habits were compared using the general linear model and the estimated means and P value for trend were calculated, with energy-adjusted food intake as the dependent variable and body mass index, gender, age, residential areas, and living status as covariates.

RESULTS: In both males and females, the proportion of those who ate breakfast irregularly was about 10%. The daily intake of fish, vegetables, and fruit was significantly higher in those who ate breakfast with their guardians than in those who ate breakfast alone (P for trend <0.01). The daily intake of fish, seafood, and vegetables was significantly higher in those who less frequently ate cooked foods for breakfast (P for trend <0.01). Those who ate rice more frequently than bread at breakfast had a higher daily intake of fish, seafood, and vegetables (P for trend <0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: Eating breakfast with the family, reducing the intake of cooked foods at breakfast, and eating breakfast with rice as a main staple food are suggested to contribute to an improved quality of diet in adolescents.