Skipping Breakfast and Subsequent Overweight/Obesity in Children: A Nationwide Prospective Study of 2.5- to 13-year-old Children in Japan
Yuri Yaguchi-Tanaka, Takahiro Tabuchi
Abstract
BACKGROUND: century. METHODS: We examined the associations between skipping breakfast at 2.5 years old and overweight/obesity at 2.5 (n = 34,649), 4.5 (n = 35,472), 7 (n = 31,266), 10 (n = 31,211), and 13 (n = 28,772) years old. To estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of overweight/obesity by each age (2.5, 4.5, 7, 10, and 13 years), a multivariate logistic regression was used adjusting for time-invariant and time-varying covariates. RESULTS: At the age of 2.5 years, 11.0% of boys and 12.2% of girls were skipping breakfast. In fully adjusted models, skipping breakfast at 2.5 years old was not significantly associated with overweight/obesity at 2.5 and 4.5 years old, but was significantly associated with overweight/obesity at 7 and 10 years old, in both sexes. Skipping breakfast at 2.5 years old was significantly associated with overweight/obesity at 13 years old in boys (OR 1.38; 95% CI, 1.17-1.62), but not in girls (OR 1.21; 95% CI, 0.98-1.49). CONCLUSIONS: Skipping breakfast in early childhood increased overweight/obesity in later childhood, but there may be gender differences in the association.