The effects of breakfast on behavior and academic performance in children and adolescents
Adolphus K, Lawton CL, Dye L · 2013
grade Dreviewindependentnot-applicable
Sample
36 articles, 1950-2013
Population
Children and adolescents, undernourished and well-nourished, across SES bands.
Design
Narrative systematic review covering habitual breakfast, acute breakfast, and school breakfast programmes, with in-class behaviour and academic performance as outcomes. The review reports a mainly positive effect on on-task behaviour and a suggestive positive effect of habitual breakfast frequency and quality on academic performance, but concludes in its own abstract that these associations "can be attributed, in part, to confounders such as SES and to methodological weaknesses such as the subjective nature of the observations of behavior in class."
Key findings
Mainly positive effect on classroom on-task behaviour, based on subjective observer ratings; suggestive positive association between habitual breakfast frequency/quality and academic performance, clearest for maths and arithmetic grades in UNDERNOURISHED children; authors concede confounding by SES.
Genetic confound
High for the habitual-breakfast findings. Habitual breakfast frequency and quality are household-routine variables that index parental conscientiousness, organisation and SES - traits with substantial heritability that predict child achievement directly. No genetically informed design appears anywhere in the reviewed literature.
Effects
| Outcome | Metric | Value | Measure | Timing | Vs | Horizon | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classroom on-task behaviour (non-cognitive) | narrative synthesis | mainly positive, based on subjective in-class observation | researcher-designed | same morning | unclear | end-of-treatment | non-cognitive |
| Academic performance and habitual breakfast (correlational) | narrative synthesis | consistently positive association; clearest in undernourished children; attributed in part to SES confounding by the authors | mixed | cross-sectional and longitudinal | none | not-applicable | domain-skill |