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ChildObesity180 presents The Breakfast Effect
Several studies have shown that eating breakfast
is linked to healthier weight in children,
and there is some suggestive evidence that eating breakfast
can actually prevent unhealthy weight gain as well.
The Food Research and Action Center has compiled some of this research.
For instance, in their paper "Breakfast for Health,"
they present a study by Dr. Michael Goran and his colleagues
at the University of Southern California
on the relationship between breakfast and fat distribution in children.
His study suggests that eating breakfast
can help children's bodies store fat in healthier ways,
potentially protecting them from diseases like diabetes.
Dr. Goran and his team recently conducted another study
exploring the relationship between breakfast and physical activity.
Children who tended to consume breakfast more frequently
turned out to be more physically active
than the children who did not eat breakfast
on a regular basis.
Both of these studies together provide collective evidence
from a cross-sectional perspective at least
that eating breakfast on a more regular basis is protective
for lower obesity and favorable body fat distribution.
These two studies only apply to a specific population of children
and shouldn't be overgeneralized,
but are certainly encouraging and merit further research.
Another study highlighted in the paper
by the Food Research and Action Center
was produced by Dr. Molly Timlin and her colleagues
at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Timlin found that adolescents who ate breakfast more often
had lower BMI than those who ate it less frequently.
But does the breakfast served at school also provide these benefits?
Dr. Ronette Briefel and her team at Mathematica Policy Research
recently explored this question.
Our primary conclusion from this paper
was that participation in the School Breakfast Program
was not associated with an increased risk of obesity or overweight,
and in fact School Breakfast participation was associated with a lower BMI.
We also looked at how frequently students participated
in the School Breakfast Program,
so you could obviously participate from 1-5 days out of any given week.
So for each extra day of participation in the School Breakfast Program,
it was associated with a decrease in Body Mass Index.
Participating in the School Breakfast Program for 5 days/week
translates to a 4 pounds lower body weight
for let's say an average 5 foot student.
So I think in terms of childhood obesity prevention in general
these data support that providing a school breakfast
and assuring that children have access to a healthful school breakfast
can contribute to being protective against the risk of obesity.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University echoes this finding
in his study on the nutritional value of the school breakfast program.
So school meal programs have a funny relationship with obesity.
I mean, essentially what school meal programs involve
is providing kids with calories.
And what kind of calories matters, of course,
but as a mechanism to prevent obesity,
it's not the most obvious thing to do,
is to provide kids with calories.
And in fact there's a tension, I think,
between obesity prevention and nutrition improvement.
I think School Breakfast based on our results,
that tradeoff really isn't there for School Breakfast;
we found no change in caloric intake,
and yet improvements in the diet almost everywhere we looked.
These results are encouraging,
but there's still a lot to learn about the effect
of eating School Breakfast on children's weight.
Does increased SBP participation actually reduce childhood obesity rates?
If so, is this because children who eat school breakfast
increase their physical activity,
or because they have more balanced calorie intake throughout the day?
And does school breakfast affect all children's weight in the same way?
Despite these unanswered questions,
this scientific evidence demonstrates the potential of the SBP
to protect children from child obesity and related health risks.
ChildObesity180 presents The Breakfast Effect