Study on Breakfast Consumption Pattern and Its Outcomes in Relation to Hematological and Body Composition Indices...

Breakfast consumption is of utmost importance for adolescents to attain nutritional adequacy. The association of breakfast skipping with overall nutritional status has been supported with little causal evidences. Therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to examine this conjecture. A total of 500 adolescent girls from rural and urban government schools of Ludhiana District in the Punjab State of India in the age group of 16-18 years were randomly interviewed to assess their breakfast consumption pattern. Based on their breakfast consumption pattern, 90 subjects out of 500 interviewed girls were selected and categorized in three groups of regular, occasional, and never breakfast consumers. They were further assessed for body composition and hematological profile including hemoglobin level, red blood cell count, packed cell volume to evaluate the association with breakfast consumption. Consequently, a higher percentage of regular breakfast (83%) consumers were found in the normal category of BMI as compared to occasional (30%) and never (27%) consumers. There was a significant (p ≤ 0.05) association of body mass index and muscle mass with breakfast consumption. Similarly, a higher percentage of regular breakfast consumers (60%) were found non-anemic in comparison to occasional (13%) and never (3%) and showed a significant association with breakfast consumption.