80% government school kids in Hyderabad skip breakfast: Study

HYDERABAD: About 80% gover nment high school students in Hyderabad skip breakfast, resulting in malnutrition. Mid-day meal offered by the state government is the first meal for these students. Only 20% students attending mid-day schools consume breakfast. These stats came to light from a study conducted on 5,250 students from 30 government schools.
Most high school students (11 to 16 years) in government-aided schools, too, skip breakfast as they are not used to eating early. In many families, breakfast is not even cooked.

These data came to light during a study on tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis among most city schoolchildren. Experts link malnutrition to low immunity, thus making growing kids susceptible to TB bacterium.


The study also revealed that adolescent girls outnumbered boys when it came to skipping breakfast. Possible reasons for skipping breakfast are eating late dinner, sleeping late and getting up late. Also, many parents send their wards without breakfast thinking that mid-day meal was highly nutritious, said Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation, which is part of the research.

“A person should eat a well-balanced breakfast because 15-25% of the daily energy comes from it,” said Dr Anita Seth, professor and head of paediatrics department, Government Maternity Hospital, Petlaburz.

Dr Sujatha Stephen, nutritionist, said, “A healthy breakfast must be rich in wholegrains with fibre like wheat or jowar and good protein foods like eggs or whole pulses and less in refined sugars.” She added that kids, who consumed breakfast, had more attention span and memory.