20-30% of Italian students do not do it and, due to school timetables, fasting from the night before risks lasting up to 15 hours. The bad habit becomes more frequent with increasing age
Kids who skip breakfast before school have a lower academic performance and they can suffer from irritability and fatigue.
Fasting too long
He has long known the importance of the first meal of the day, but perhaps not everyone knows that the population that suffers more from the lack of breakfast is the school population: many adolescents, due to lesson times, may find themselves spending fast all hours ranging from dinner to lunch, which can arrive over 15. This is why the consequences on our body are irritability and worse school performance: the brain lacking energy. You can also suffer from headache and dizziness. Furthermore, young people who do not eat breakfast have a greater risk of obesity and overweight, say nutritionists and paediatricians: they arrive at the next meal with a greater feeling of hunger and this leads them to consume more calories.
The numbers in Italy
In Italy, according to the 2018 survey on children between 11 and 15 years old of the HBSC Surveillance System promoted by the Ministry of Health and coordinated by the Istituto Superiore di Sanit, there is a frequent habit of not eating breakfast on school days: 20-30% of students don’t, with prevalence increasing with age, going from 20.7% of 11 year olds, to 26.4% of 13 year olds, to 30.6% of 15 year olds; that percentage higher in girls in all age groups. And the trend, compared to 2014, has worsened slightly.
Even having breakfast later doesn’t seem like a good idea: the biological (circadian) rhythm has a lot of influence on whether or not to eat at a given moment. If we have breakfast at eleven in the morning and eat at four in the afternoon, the entire digestive system is not ready to receive food.
How to eat breakfast the right way
Conversely, a good breakfast is associated with a lower body mass index, lower fat consumption during the day, a more adequate intake of fruit and vegetables (and therefore also fibres), and better performance at school. What choices are shown? THE liquids are essential moreover, to rehydrate after a night’s rest, all the nutrients must be present: carbohydrates (bread, cereals or rusks), proteins (milk or yoghurt), fats (the ones from dried fruit are perfect), mineral salts and vitamins (fruit), for a caloric intake that should be equal to 20 percent of total daily calories.