Why Breakfast is Essential for Kids
We’ve always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and a recent study has stressed the importance of making sure that your children eat a complete and nutritious breakfast in the morning. During the night the brain is starved of fuel, and breakfast provides it with energy that it needs to carry it throughout the day. Although breakfast is such an important meal, it is believed that nearly 18 percent of the American population does not regularly eat breakfast.
A study conducted at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing studied over 1200 children in China. After overlooking reports on children who had a series of IQ scores the study found that children who frequently missed breakfast generally had lower scores. Their scores lacked in the following ways:
- Over 4.5 Points Lower on Total IQ
- Over 5.5 Points Lower on Verbal
- 2.5 Points Lower on Performance
Breakfast plays an important role in the development of verbal communication skills, which are drastically changing and developing around the age of six. Breakfast not only provides the brain with the nutrients that it needs, but it also presents a time to talk and put these developing skills to practice. Childhood is an important time where many of the habits and routines that will last through life are developed. This includes lifestyle habits and dietary patterns, and something as simple as eating breakfast can have important short term and long term impacts.
It is also important for adults to regularly eat breakfast, and adults who skip breakfast tend to weigh more, and they are more likely to partake in high calorie snaking and consume high calorie drinks more frequently. One doctor at the University of Pennsylvania even stated that poor breakfast habits are linked to a number of negative habits, like alcoholism, lethargy, and smoking.
It is clear that breakfast is an important way to start your day, and it is even more important to the cognitive development of your children. Make sure that you and your family start the day right with a healthy a nutrient packed breakfast.