Breakfast practice of pupils in Beijing and Shanghai and the factors contributing to it

Meiqin CAI; Chengye JI; Kefeng YANG; Wu ZENG; Junling SUN

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Having breakfast everyday is a behavior promoting health recommended WHO, while it is easy to be ignored.

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the breakfast habits of pupils in Beijing and Shanghai so as to provide a scientific basis for further studying the problems in having breakfast among the pupils, drafting and developing "nutritious breakfast program for students".

DESIGN:

Stratified and cluster sampling and investigation study were used based on the pupils.

SETTING:

Institute of health for child of two universities.

SUBJECTS:

A total of 8688 six to eleven years old Beijing and Shanghai pupils were involved from March 2002 to June 2002. Among them 4692 pupils came from Beijing. There were 4637 valid questionnaires, 2386 of which were from male pupils and 2251 from female pupiIs. Among the total subjects, there were 4300 Shanghai pupils, and 4051 questionnaires were valid, of which 2031 were from the male pupils and 2020 from female students.

METHODS:

A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted. The content of the questionnaire included the general conditions of the family, dietary preferences, food for breakfast, consumption of the milk food and so on.

RESULTS:

The results showed that about 25.8% boys and 21.6% girls in Beijing did not eat breakfast regularly; similarly, the percentage was about 11.4% for boys and 13.3% for girls in Shanghai. The reasons for not having breakfast included the following They had no appetite, or had no enough time for it, or the parents were too busy to prepare in the mornings. For those of them who eat breakfasts, the nutrients of their breakfast usually were not adequate. 55% of the students had their breakfast prepared by their mothers. As for the eating sites, students mainly ate at home; the next was having it on the way to school or eating at the roadside luncheonettes. The cost of breakfast was 2 - 3 yuan. The breakfast behaviors of the pupils were closely related with the behaviors of their mothers( r = 0. 4333, P < 0.01 ).

CONCLUSION:

It is suggested that quality of breakfast of the pupils need to be improved. The behaviors of the parents influence their children in breakfast habits.