Prevalence of skipping breakfast and its associations with academic performance among students of the Faculty of Health- Care Sciences, Eastern University, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Breakfast is taken as a significant dietary source for energy and viewed as the most important meal of the day. Skipping breakfast has become the norm in modern days. Skipping breakfast is related to adverse effects on class attendance, academic performance, emotional status and mood especially in university students. There is very limited data available on relations between skipping breakfast, academic performance among FHCS students. Therefore, we endeavor to put forward a study to evaluate between skipping breakfast, and academic performance, among FHCS students. The purpose of this study is generally to estimate the prevalence of students skipping their breakfast and its associations with academic performance among students of FHCS and specifically to estimate the prevalence of students of FHCS skipping breakfast and to assess the food habit of students, the awareness of the students, the association between skipping breakfast and academic performance and the relationship between skipping breakfast and demographical variables. A Cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among all batches of Nursing and Medical students of the FHCS, Eastern University Sri Lanka (EUSL) from December 2020 to September 2021. 250 of participants were selected using a snowball sampling method and an online data collection was carried out using a pilot tested and self-administered questionnaire. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 25 (SPSS V.25) was used to enter and analyze the data. The prevalence of skipping breakfast among nursing and medical students in FHCS, EUSL during the study period was 36.4%. Most of participants (68.1%) skip their breakfast due to lack of time. 20% of the respondents have experienced positive effects of skipping breakfast and most of them (40.4%) have experienced reduced discomfort and feeling of nausea or vomiting while traveling. 86% of participants have experienced negative effects of skipping breakfast and in highest percentage low energy level (74.2%). While assessing the association between skipping breakfast and academic performance of the students of FHCS, EUSL we could find that there is a strong evidence of association between skipping breakfast and academic performance of the students. (Chi square= 8.202, df=2, p<0.05). As well as there is evidence of significant association between skipping breakfast and Ethnic group (Chi square= 11.260, df=3, p<0.05), Religion (Chi square= 8.950, df=3, p<0.05) and BMI level (Chi square= 10.737, df=3, p<0.05) of the students. The skippers of breakfast were not only facing difficulties and achieved an inadequate level of academic performance, many non-skippers also had inadequate level of academic performances. In comparisons between both groups, differences were noticed in parameters like memory concentration, grades obtained and attendance between breakfast skippers and non-skippers. Hence there was a small elevation among non-skippers in their academic performance. Therefore, there can be other factors of which were not identified in this study may influence academic activities among students in FHCS, EUSL, rather than skipping breakfast.