Assessing prevalence, factors and health consequences and academic performance of undergraduate students with breakfast skipping during COVID-19 using statistical modeling: a cross-sectional study
Authors: Kadir Dler H. , Saleem Mahmood Fadhil , Galali Yaseen , Khudr Azhin M. , Balaky Holem Hashm , Hassanzadeh Hamed , Ghanbarzadeh Babak 
Published: August 2024

The study was conducted in order to study breakfast skipping (BKS) frequency, factors associated with, health consequence and undergraduate students academic performance during Covid-19 pandemic as earliest studies focusing on this area. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 2225 of undergraduate students. The study was carried between the period of 15/1/2020 to 3/4/2020 using an online self-report Breakfast Eating Habit Survey (BEHS). The BEHS survey was divided into two sections. The first sections included sociodemographic information (gender, BMI, age, smoking, residency, parental education, family income, studying system and stage (public or private), and studying institution (university or institute) academic performance. The second part included questions regarding breakfast eating habits including frequency of skipping meals, factors related to BKS health consequences and types of snacks. Logistic regression is a common technique used for modeling outcomes that fall into the range of 1 and 0. For this purpose, a logistic regression was performed to find adjusted odds ratio and crude odds ratio. The results showed that the majority of participants were female (1238, 55.7%). Out of 2,224 students, 2059 are aged between 18 to 24 years. Most of the participants were from first level (26.5%), second level (32.8%), third level (17.6%) or the fourth level (21.3%). Over 92% of participants were single and about 68% came from families of medium income families. The statistical analysis showed that the odds of BKS is reduced among students who live in accommodation by 54% (odds ratio = 54%, CI (41–71%), p value = 0.000). It seems that students with low income and normal or higher BMI are more likely to skip breakfast more regularly. The odds of skipping breakfast among students with BMI of 18–24.9 is reduced by 41% (odds ratio = 59%, CI (27%-93%), p value = 0.027) and the odds of BKS is reduced among students with BMI of 25–29.9 by 45% (odds ratio = 55%, CI (31–95%). Additionally, students with medium or high incomes are more likely to skip breakfast as much as twofold in comparison with students with low income (medium income (odds ratio = 1.85, CI (1.08–3.17), p-value = 0.024), high income (odds ratio = 1.98, CI (1.12–3.51), p-value = 0.019). The most common reasons for skipping breakfast included include time constraint, not hungry, breakfast is not ready, afraid to be overweight and lack of appetite. The consequences of skipping breakfast were feeling hungry throughout the day, feeling tired, and not paying attention in class and low academic performance. To concluded, BKS during Covid-19 is more common among students with higher BMI, higher income and living in accommodation. The main reason is time constraint and the most common health problems are being tired and luck of attention.