Breakfast consumption association with body status and physical activity among female university students

Breakfast consumption is associated with many benefits, including behavioural, cognitive, and affective aspects of individuals. Young adults, especially female university/college students frequently failed to meet the prescription of nutritional intake and often skip meals particularly breakfast. Thus, this present study was aimed to investigate the associations of breakfast consumption with body status and level of physical activity among female university students. A total of 165 female university students, mean aged 21.9 ± 1.5 years from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia voluntarily took part in this study. Body weight, height, waist circumference and body fat percentages were measured using the standard procedures. The odd ratios were calculated to compare in level of physical activity between skippers and non-skippers. Findings revealed that breakfast consumption was not significantly associated with body mass index (BMI), waist circumferences and physical activity level. Conversely, the results showed that breakfast consumption was significantly associated with body fat percentages (%BF) (p<0.05; p=0.006). The results show that skippers were more likely (OR: 1.6; 95% CI) never do mild exercise or do mild exercise for less half an hour per day (56.5%) compared to non-skippers (43.5%) even though the data did not meet the statistical significant. Among the respondents, skippers (56.5%) were more likely (OR: 1.6; 95% CI) who spend time less half an hour in moderate exercise than non-skippers (43.5%). Also, the data indicates that non-skippers (53.3%) were more likely (OR: 2.4 times) to do moderate exercise of more than half an hour rather than skippers (46.7%). Skippers (65.3%) tend to do more strenuous exercise of less than half an hour (OR: 5.3; 95% CI) compared to non-skippers (34.7%). Emphasizing the importance of eating breakfast may lead university students to have better healthy lifestyles, improve academic achievement and prevent obesity crisis among young adults.