Assessment of Breakfast Skipping and Health-Compromising Behaviours Among College Students in Chennai

BACKGROUND: Breakfast is often considered to be the most important meal of the day. Skipping breakfast has become more common among young adults. Its prompting them to adapt an unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits, which might affect their health in long term.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 500 college going students from Chennai, India to assess and compare their demography, socio-economic status, habits and breakfast eating pattern.

RESULTS: The age of the study subjects ranged from 17 to 28 years,with mean age 19.82+2.035 years. Among them, 360 (72%) were females and 140 (28%) were males. Among these 500 students, 47.8% were not having breakfast regularly in the morning and 52.2% were having breakfast regularly. The habit of skipping breakfast had began predominatly after joining college among female students (56.2%) and in school among males students (54.1%) which was significant statistically (p-value=0.004). Students from Class Ⅲ socio-economic status participated in physical activity everyday (24%).

CONCLUSION: The breakfast skipping prevalence was quite high among the study subjects and it had began in their college life for the majority of the popupaltion.

KEYWORDS: lifestyle, exercise, over-eating, sleep pattern, socio-economic status.

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