If you’ve paid even a nanosecond of attention, you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
That doesn’t mean you’re doing it right. A study of ninth-graders found that more than two-thirds of the students weren’t making the most of their financial and nutritional investments in the morning meal.
In the study, which involved 567 high school freshmen in New Orleans, researchers analyzed tons of data to conclude that cereal is the most nutritious and cheapest breakfast food. But less than one-third of the students surveyed ate cereal. Most ate something else – bagels, bacon and eggs, sweet rolls – and 5 percent had fast-food breakfasts.
Theresa Nicklas, lead researcher on the study and a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine’s Children’s Nutrition Research Center, says earlier studies have shown that people who eat breakfast have healthier body weights, as well as better cognitive functioning.
That means students who eat breakfast perform better in school. But, Nicklas says, no one has looked at whether students who eat cereal or another healthy breakfast perform better than students who grab an Egg McMuffin on their way to class.
Her hope is that the study helps people get the word that a convenient breakfast can be both inexpensive and nutritious. “We know there are increasing demands on families, so they’re placing less time in the home on nutrition,” Nicklas says. “They need to make efficient food choices.”
A few facts from the study about the first meal of the day: -Most breakfasts are fast food of a sort: According to a 1998 Gallup Survey, 46 percent of people reported spending five minutes or less preparing a weekday breakfast.
-The average cost of a fast-food breakfast from restaurants including McDonald’s, Burger King or Dunkin’ Donuts is $2.38, compared to 78 cents for a bowl of cereal. The other breakfast foods cost an average of 82 cents.
-About 14 percent of students surveyed didn’t eat breakfast at all. Nicklas says those figures climb throughout adolescence, reaching about 33 percent by early adulthood.
-The Department of Agriculture reports a 60 percent increase in consumption of cold cereal from 1977 to 1994. But only 28 percent of consumers believe that cereal is a good value for the money, with most people saying it is too expensive to buy without a coupon.
-The fast-food breakfasts had nearly four times more calories and fat than cereal; cereal was higher in carbohydrates, fiber, protein and vitamins and minerals.
Aetna IntelliHealth.com, March 13, 2002, HOUSTON (Houston Chronicle),
Additional Reading:
Breakfast – Don’t Leave Home Without It
Copyright 2002 The Houston Chronicle. All rights reserved.
