ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the breakfast behaviors and nutritional quality among primary and secondary students,and to provide scientific evidence for developing intervention strategies.Method Random three-stage clustering sampling method was employed in the study.A questionnaire survey was conducted among 9194 primary and secondary students aged 6-17y,from seven cities in China.Results The rates of primary and secondary students having breakfast everyday were 97.0%,92.4%,and 93.4%,Most of the students had their breakfast within 30 min after getting up,the rates being 75.4%,74.7%,and 68.6% respectively.Mothers primarily cook breakfast for the students,the rates being 53.1%,49.9%,and 49.7% respectively.In most cases,they had breakfast at home,the rates being 71.8%,67.0%,and 63.8% respectively.The rates of students having poor quality breakfast were above 80%.Conclusion Primary and secondary students are one of the focal target people for preventing unhealthy dietary behaviors due to shortcomings of eating breakfast.It is necessary to improve the nutritional quality of breakfast for better health of students.