Middle school students who eat breakfast at school—even if they have already had breakfast at home—are less likely to be overweight or obese than students who skip breakfast all together.
The findings add to the ongoing debate over policy efforts to increase the number of children who receive daily school breakfasts. Previous research has shown that eating breakfast is associated with improved academic performance, better health, and healthy body weight for students.
But there have been concerns that a second breakfast at school following breakfast at home could increase the risk of unhealthy weight gain.
Students who skipped or ate breakfast inconsistently were more than twice as likely to be overweight or obese.
