Abstract:
Cognitive development and physical growth among teenagers and adult depend on
their nutritional stah1s which includes the habit of taking breakfast. The purpose of
this study was to determine the association of breakfast consumption and cognitive
achievement of university students. A cross sectional study was conducted among
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu's students. The subjects consisted of 200 multiracial
students aged 20 till 23 years old. Two types of subscales from Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Adult - Revised test were used to measure the cognitive stage of the adult,
i.e. digit symbol and digit span. Three supplementary memory tests were also
included. Results from the independent I-test analysis showed that there is no
significant difference between breakfast intake for students who took breakfast and
students who did not take breakfast on the tests scores. The category of food expenses
did not have any effect on students' cognitive achievement based on result from one
way ANOVA analysis. Besides that the common reason cited by 43.5 % subjects for
skipping breakfast is no time to eat breakfast. The level of awareness about the
importance of having breakfast among the respondents was at good level.
