Abstract
Purpose
– Breakfast skipping by children, with its varying global prevalence and associated factors, is well documented to adversely affect their health, cognitive ability, academic performance and anthropometric status. Libya, a country with a young population base, has limited information on breakfast skipping prevalence among its young citizens as well as its compounding factors unique to the country. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the breakfast skipping pattern among Benghazi primary school children. Design/methodology/approach
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper's approach is to use a cross sectional study among 386 primary school children (196 males and 190 females) using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire. The enrolment exclusion criteria were a pre-existing chronic disease or a food allergy or food intolerance or any acute illness. Findings
Findings
– Breakfast skipping during weekdays (38.6 per cent, n
Practical implications
– Efforts, including better time management, are required to inculcate a positive breakfast eating attitude among Benghazi primary school children. Their parents need to act as better role models by adopting healthy breakfast eating practices themselves.
Originality/value
– The paper shows that breakfast skipping among Benghazi primary school children is a nutritional problem of grave concern, warranting a public health intervention.