Regular High-Fiber Breakfast Associated With Maintaining Healthy Weight in Girls

buy microsoft office enterprise 2007

buy Microsoft Office 2003 Professional sp3buy autodesk autocad 2009

Regular High-Fiber Breakfast Associated With Maintaining Healthy Weight in Girls

Previous research has shown that children who consume breakfast regularly are much more likely to meet recommended intakes of vitamins and minerals than children who do not. This may be attributed to the consumption of breakfast cereals, many of which are fortified with essential nutrients, and provide dietary fiber.

Research has also shown that children who eat cereals consume significantly less fat and cholesterol than children who eat other foods for breakfast. However, less is known about the relationship between consumption of cereal and body mass index in children.
In this paper, researchers analyzed data from a 10-year longitudinal cohort study of more than 2,300 adolescent girls, all of whom were 9 or 10 years old at the start of the study. Dietary habits were tracked annually, using a three-day food questionnaire that documented the frequency of breakfast consumption and whether cereal was consumed as part of breakfast, along with intakes of dietary fiber, fat, calcium, iron, folic acid, vitamin C, and zinc.
Results: "Compared with girls who ate cereal on 0 days, girls who ate cereal on 1, 2, or 3 days were 0.93, 0.90, and 0.87 times as likely to be at risk of overweight; that is, eating cereal on 1 or more days resulted in a reduction in risk of overweight," the scientists wrote. In addition, "a similar trend was seen for breakfast consumption, with those consuming breakfast on 3 days having lower BMIs than girls who skipped breakfast on all or most days."
In the study's conclusion, the authors stated that their analysis "clearly demonstrated that cereal consumption was predictive of lower BMI" in adolescent females. They added that cereal consumption "had positive effects on nutrient intake in girls, resulting in diets significantly lower in fat and cholesterol."
Barton BA, Eldridge AL, Thompson D, et al. The relationship of breakfast and cereal consumption to nutrient intake and body mass index: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study. Journal of the American Dietetic Association September 2005;105:1383-1389.