Adolescent breakfast skipping: an Australian study

Adolescence,  Winter, 1998  by Mary E. Shaw

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Only those children who completed a subsection of the questionnaire on food and eating habits (n = 721), and for whom there was a corresponding maternal questionnaire, were included in this investigation. As income was considered a central variable, only those cases where this information was provided were used. This left 699 valid cases. The data were analyzed using SPSS/PC+ Version 4.0 (Norusis, 1990).

Supplementary data were collected via a telephone survey approximately one year after questionnaires were completed. The 82 respondents (11.7%) who reported not eating breakfast formed the sample for this follow-up; of these, 56 completed interviews (68%) and 26 could not be contacted. Respondents were asked how often they ate breakfast, and if they did not, their reasons for skipping.

RESULTS

The sociodemographic patterns of skipping breakfast were examined using the chi-square test. Total family income was divided into low income ($399 or less per week) and average-high income ($400 or more per week). Education (of mother) was divided into those who had completed compulsory education or less (up to the age of 16) and those who had some further education. As Table i illustrates, the only statistically significant sociodemographic variable was gender (p [less than] .00001): females skipped breakfast at over three times the rate of males. (Previous findings regarding age could not be confirmed due to age being constant.)

Investigation of other health-related behaviors revealed that not only did females skip breakfast more often than did males, they were also more likely to skip lunch (p [less than] .05, chi-square test) and to have been on a diet to lose weight (p [less than] .00001, chi-square test). Due to the prevalence and differences in reported dieting behavior, attitudes toward body shape and weight were also investigated. The adolescents were asked whether they thought they were overweight (responses were coded as yes or no). They were also asked to identify which of four body shapes they most resembled, and which one they would most like to be (recoded as satisfied with body shape, want to be smaller, and want to be larger). While females and males were equally likely to consider themselves overweight (33.3% and 31.8%, respectively), females were significantly more likely to be dissatisfied with their body shape and to want to be smaller (p [less than] .00001, chi-square test). Nearly half of the females wanted to be smaller; males were more likely to want to be larger (see Table 2).

For females, skipping breakfast may be connected in some way to feelings about body shape, and it may also be a method of dieting. For males, however, skipping breakfast may not be associated with other health-related behaviors or with attitudes.

[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED]

These different gender patterns can be seen in two separate correlation matrices of behaviors and attitudes for males (Table 3) and females (Table 4). The only significant relationship for males was that those who wanted to be smaller were more likely to have been on a diet to lose weight. However, it seems that these males did not diet by missing meals. For females, body-shape dissatisfaction, dieting, and skipping breakfast and lunch might be connected phenomena.