Breakfast consumption-related attitudes among girl adolescents: applying an indirect measurement

Desirable nutrition and breakfast intake have a major contribution to nutritional needs of students. Empirical evidence has shown that breakfast removal has an unpleasant effect on cognitive and perceptual performance of individuals. The aim of this study was to determine the Iranian students' attitudes about breakfast consumption and its related factors.

In this descriptive & analytical (cross sectional) study 320 female high school students of Ardal district in 2018 were enrolled in a multistage sampling method. Data were collected using a questionnaire consist of behavioral beliefs and evaluation of the outcome. Face validity test was carried out with the view of 15 adolescents and content validity with seven expert opinions. Internal consistency and test-retest method were used for instrument reliability. Independent-samples T-Test, One-Way ANOVA and Post Hoc Multiple Comparisons were used for data analysis by SPSS ver.16.

There was a significant relationship between the attitude of adolescents and father's education (P = 0.047), sleep time (P < 0.001) and who ate breakfast (P = 0.003). But there was a significant relationship between attitudes with other variables not observed (P > 0.05). There was a significant relationship between behavioral beliefs of students with family size variable (P = 0.003), sleep time (0.001), who ate breakfast (P < 0.001) and father's education, evaluation of behavioral outcomes with sleep time variable (P = 0.01) There was a significant relationship. According to the classification, the attitudes of most students (%51/6) regarding breakfast consumption was good and most of them have acceptable beliefs on positive outcomes of breakfast consumption except (example; better learning lessons and having physical health) but in the outcome of more activity in school and energy and vitality, student had unacceptable beliefs.

In designing interventions, we must work to maintain a positive attitudes toward breakfast consumption through promoting behavioral beliefs and evaluation of behavioral outcomes.