New Delhi: They say breakfast like a king as the breakfast meal is a must for good health, but a study shows the Indian adolescents are missing it much too often compromising their health, says a comprehensive survey on the dietary habits of those between 15 and 17 years of age.
The study was conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with the National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (NCDIR). In the study covered in the past 30 days, the researchers say 48.3% adolescents skipped breakfast on at least one day, while 4% on all 30 days.
"Breakfast was skipped on an average of 10 days by all adolescents surveyed and this trend was similar across all strata, a little higher for rural India." The survey results have been published in the BMJ Open, a globally read open-access journal.
It also revealed that one in every 10 adolescents in India had experience with smoke or smokeless forms of tobacco, one-fourth were not sufficiently physically active, while 6.2% were overweight and half of them consumed salted and fried savouries at least once a week. The adolescents have a high level of risk of developing non-communicable diseases (NCD).
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"Adolescents from the urban areas had a higher proportion of the risk factors than those from the rural areas. On average, the breakfast was skipped for 10 days in a month, slightly more in rural areas. Only two-third reported being impacted with the health education on the NCD risk factor in their schools and colleges. The survey was conducted on 1531 adolescents in 1402 families, according to Prashant Mathur, its lead author.
