| GEO Health| Breakfast-skipper kids develop health problems |
Updated at: 1423 PST, Thursday, August 19, 2010| LONDON: Almost
a third of children regularly go without breakfast before school
and are more likely than classmates to be inactive, unfit and
obese, research shows. While 68% of pupils eat before leaving
home, 32% do not. Of the latter, 25% only sometimes have a
morning meal and 7% never have breakfast on school days,
according to findings which have raised fresh concern about
children's eating habits and general health. The study of 4,326
children, aged 10-16, in England was reported in the European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition and found that 26.6% of boys and
38.6% of girls skipped breakfast some or all of the time. Boys
often blame lack of time, while many girls missed breakfast
because they believe doing so would help them lose weight. "We
found that children who skip breakfast either occasionally or
routinely are less fit, less active and more likely to be
overweight or obese than those who al