School breakfasts contribute to healthy weight
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So important, in fact, that it’s okay doing it twice.
A study found that middle school students who eat breakfast in school—even if they already had breakfast at home—are lesslikely to be overweight.
The study was done by the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) at the Yale School of Public Health and the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut.
Before the study, there have been concerns that a second breakfast at school following breakfast at home could increase the risk of unhealthy weight gain.
“Our study does not support those concerns,” said Jeannette Ickovics, the paper’s senior author, director of CARE, and a professor at Yale School of Public Health. “Providing a healthy breakfast to students at school helps alleviate food insecurity and is associated with students maintaining a healthy weight.”
The study involved 584 middle school students from 12 schools in an urban school district where breakfast and lunch are provided to all students at no cost. Researchers tracked the students’ breakfast-eating locations and patterns, and their weight over a two-year period from 5th grade in 2011-2012 to 7th grade in 2013-2014.
Specifically, the study found that:
- Students who skipped or ate breakfast inconsistently were more than twice as likely to be overweight or obese compared with students who ate double breakfasts.
- The weight changes from 5th to 7th grade for the students who ate double breakfasts was no different than the weight changes measured for all of the other students.
“When it comes to the relationship between school breakfast and body weight, our study suggests that two breakfasts are better than none,” said Marlene Schwartz, a study author and director of the Rudd Center.
