Abstract

GOTTHELF, Susana J  and  TEMPESTTI, Claudia P. Breakfast, nutritional status, and socioeconomic outcome measures among primary school students from the City of Salta: A cross-sectional study. Arch. argent. pediatr. [online]. 2017, vol.115, n.5, pp.424-431. ISSN 0325-0075.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5546/aap.2017.424.

Introduction. Socioeconomic context and family dynamics are determining factors when considering eating habits and nutritional status among students. It has been demonstrated that skipping breakfast or having a light breakfast has an unfavorable impact on nutritional status. Objective. To establish a relationship among breakfast, sociodemographic outcome measures, and nutritional status among students attending public schools in the urban and peri-urban areas of the City of Salta. Population and methods. Descriptive, crosssectional study. Purposive, non-probability sampling of students attending urban and periurban primary schools (aged 9-13, boys and girls). Outcome measures: breakfast at home (habit, "enKid" breakfast quality, frequency, duration), nutritional status (body mass index, Z-score, World Health Organization), and sociodemographic outcome measures (family type, level of education, employment, parents' breakfast habit, commensality). Analysis of frequency, associations, logistic regression, odds ratio, confidence interval, p < 0.05, WHO AnthroPlus and SPSS v18 software. Results. Two hundred and eighty-three students were assessed; 49.8% attended urban schools. Overweight or obesity was observed in 46.0%. Also, 55.1% skipped breakfast at home on the day of the assessment; among those who did have breakfast, 79.5% had a poor or very-poor quality meal. Among those who skipped breakfast, 40.7% of the girls and 54.7% of the boys were overweight or obese. A greater socioeconomic vulnerability and a higher percentage of students who attended school without having breakfast were observed in peri-urban schools. Conclusions. Eventually, the probability of skipping breakfast was associated with having a large family, absence of parental breakfast habit, a low level of maternal education, having breakfast alone, and being obese.

Keywords : Breakfast; Student; Nutritional status; Socioeconomic context.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · English ( pdf ) | Spanish ( pdf )