The Relations between Breakfast Consumption, Body Composition and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in School Children

Subject Areas : Microbiology

ماندانا  Gholami ¹ (استادیار گروه تربیت بدنی و علوم ورزشی، واحد علوم و تحقیقات تهران، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران)
لیلا  Mohamadi Asl ² (کارشناس ارشد تربیت بدنی و علوم ورزشی، واحد علوم و تحقیقات تهران، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران)

Received: 2013-07-09 Accepted : 2014-05-02 Published : 2015-03-21

Keywords: Breakfast, Body Composition, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Exercise,

Abstract :

Introduction: The children who eat breakfast, have better cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF),and enhanced ability to learn as compared to others who do not follow this pathway. The aimof this study is to analyse the relations between the eating breakfast, body composition andCRF in school children.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out including 164 girls agedbetween 9 to 11 years. Body composition, CRF and Physical Activity level were assessedduring school time. Frequency of eating breakfast was assessed by a questionnaire andclassified as never, sometimes or always. Fitness was estimated from a 540 m test and theparticipants were classified as having low or high CRF. Body composition was evaluated andchildren were classified as obese or non-obese. PA was estimated from physical activityquestionnaire and the participants were classified as having low or high PA.Results: Frequency of eating breakfast showed that 18% of school children never hadbreakfast, 24% ate sometimes and 58% always ate breakfast. There was no significant relationbetween the frequency of breakfast and anthropometric characteristic. Breakfast consumptionwas not associated with physical activity (p=0.3) and with CRF (p=0.3).Conclusion: fitness level, body composition and PA are not associated with the frequency ofeating breakfast in schoolchildren.