Association between breakfast consumption and cognitive achievement of UMT's undergraduates

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.