The study of primary schoolchildren eating breakfast status in Ilam: A pilot study

Introduction: Breakfast is repeatedly called to as the most important meal of the day and has positive effects on nutritional profile, cognitive activities and disease prevention in schoolchildren. The aim of this study was to assess the eating breakfast status in a sample of primary students of Ilam city. Materials and methods: Participants of this cross-sectional study were 298 schoolchildren grade 4th, 5th and 6th from 8 primary schools of Ilam city. Data were collected by researcher-made self-report brief questionnaire and were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistics data editor. Results: The subjects included 148 boys (49.7%) and 150 girls (50.3%) from eight primary schools. The majority of sample (35.9%) educating in 4th grade and 54.0% of sample were living in the inner city areas. The results showed that 32.2% of study schoolchildren skipped breakfast. There was a significant difference between boys and girls breakfast habit, (P<0.018). Also, the results revealed that boys (47.22%) more likely to skip the breakfast than girls (23.07%) in outskirt, (P<0.004). But, there was no significant difference between boys (30.26%) and girls (27.05%) to breakfast skipping in inner city, (P=0.728). Furthermore, lack of appetite and breakfast not ready at home reported as main reasons for not eating breakfast. As with this study results, breakfast eaters usually ate more bread (76.5%), tea (69.8%) and milk (53.7%), But ate less fruits/vegetables (11.1%), fruit juices (13.4%) and breakfast cake (14.4%). Conclusion: With attention to high rate of skipping breakfast in this study sample and also weak quality of breakfast in breakfast eaters, it is needed to conduct the schools health promotion programs to encourage students to eat healthy breakfast.