ResearchCurrent ResearchBreakfast Consumption by African-American and White Adolescent Girls Correlates Positively with Calcium and Fiber Intake and Negatively with Body Mass Index
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Participants and Recruitment
As previously reported (19), the NHLBI Growth and Health Study recruited 2,379 African-American and white girls who were 9 or 10 years old at study entry at three study sites: University of California at Berkeley; University of Cincinnati/Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; and Westat, Inc/Group Health Association, Rockville, MD. Berkeley recruited participants from public and parochial schools in the Richmond Unified School District. The area was chosen based on census tract data
Breakfast Consumption in African-American and White Girls Aged 9 to 19 Years
The frequency of breakfast consumption in the NHLBI Growth and Health Study sample by race and age is reported in Table 1. The number of days breakfast was eaten tended to decrease with increasing age (Wald test of the age main effect in the generalized estimation equation model: χ2[10]=1,579.38, P<.0001). As illustrated in the Figure, at age 9 years, approximately 77% of white girls and 57% of African-American girls ate breakfast on all 3 days, compared with approximately 32% and 22%
Discussion
There has been increased awareness of the beneficial effects of eating breakfast as a means to promote healthful eating patterns among adolescents. Our results show that breakfast eating decreases with increasing age, frequency of breakfast eating is lower in African-American girls than white girls, and breakfast eating is associated with higher calcium and fiber intake, as well as lower BMI, in a simple model that ignores the potentially confounding effect of variables such as total energy
Conclusions
Based on the results of our study, we conclude that skipping breakfast becomes more frequent as children grow older and may predispose adolescent girls to diets that are inadequate in calcium and fiber. Also, girls who routinely eat breakfast have a reduced BMI compared with those girls who are infrequent breakfast eaters. Eating breakfast may be associated with healthful behaviors, such as physical activity, which assist in control of body weight.
In community-based settings, dietetics
S. G. Affenito is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition, Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, CT.
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S. G. Affenito is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition, Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, CT.
D. R. Thompson is a research scientist.
B. A. Barton is vice president at Maryland Medical Research Institute, Baltimore, MD.
D. L. Franko is a professor of psychology in the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
S. R. Daniels is a professor of cardiology at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH.
E. Obarzanek is a research nutritionist and acting leader, Prevention Scientific Research Group Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, MD.
G. B. Schreiber is a senior research scientist at Westat, Inc, Rockville, MD.
R. H. Striegel-Moore is a professor, Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.