Skipping breakfast: gender effects on resting heart rate measures in preadolescents

The cardiovascular response in children to morning nutrition has received little attention, and associated gender-related effects are virtually uninvestigated. This study evaluated resting heart-rate (HR) and heart-rate variability (HRV) in preadolescents after overnight fasting and again after eating a standardized breakfast or continuing to fast. HR increased slightly after eating and decreased significantly with continued fasting. These effects were present for both sexes. Relative to children who ate, those who continued fasting showed increases in HRV-particularly for inter-beat-interval and low frequency component (LF: 0.04-0.15 Hz) measures. Analyses revealed significant increases across variability measures for fasting children, but a selective LF decrease in those who were fed-an effect most prominent in females. Otherwise, males and females showed similar treatment-related changes in HRV. While within-gender comparisons showed similar results for HR, i.e., faster HR in fed compared with fasting males and females, respectively, fasting females-but not males-showed significantly greater increases in variability relative to their fed counterparts. Together, these findings suggest that extended overnight fasting initiates an increase in parasympathetic activity that attenuates the expected increase in cardiovascular output following a mid-morning meal. Observed gender differences were related to greater parasympathetic activity in males and to the apparent emphasis on parasympathetic regulation of LF variability. The implications of these findings for health concerns, the nature of responses to physiological and cognitive stressors, and how such differences may influence performance variables-particularly early in development when cardiovascular responses to these stressors may be more sensitive to nutritional factors-are discussed.