The effects of skipping breakfast on the academic performance

The effects of skipping breakfast on the academic performance

The Effects of Skipping Breakfast on the Academic Performance among students in
Centre for Foundation Studies International Islamic University Malaysia (CFS IIUM)
Alhafizah A. Ramos
Centre for Foundation Studies International Islamic University Malaysia

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Abstract
This study investigates the effects of skipping breakfast on the academic performance among
students in Centre for Foundation Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia (CFS
IIUM). This study has provided the answers for the research question like, what is the
importance of breakfast, what is the trend of skipping breakfast among students and what are the
effects of skipping breakfast, what is the relationship of the effect skipping breakfast on the
academic performance among student in CFS IIUM and do the students aware with the
importance of breakfast. Primary data were collected by randomly distributing questionnaires to
20 students in CFS IIUM in the morning. A simple IQ test also attached in the questionnaire to
test their focus and memory on the morning they answer the questionnaire. The result of this
study is, 55% of the respondents skipped the breakfast and 20% from the breakfast skipper failed
the test compare to breakfast eater, only 15%. Since the IQ test was about to examined their
focus and memory, it can be analysed that breakfast skipper has lack focus and weak memory as
many of them fail the test. As a conclusion, students who skip the breakfast tend to have a weak
memory and lack focus. This can affect their academic performance as memory and focus is very
important to excel in the study. Skipping breakfast gives negative effects to the academic
performance.
Keywords: Effects of skipping breakfast, Skipping Breakfast, Academic performance, focus,
memory, breakfast.

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Table of Contents

Pages
Abstract

………………………………………………………………………

2

Introduction

………………………………………………………………………

4

Literature Review ……………………………………………………………………....

6

Methodology

………………………………………………………………………..

9

Findings

………………………………………………………………………..

12

Discussion

………………………………………………………………………..

16

Conclusion

………………………………………………………………………..

17

References

………………………………………………………………………..

19

Appendices

………………………………………………………………………..

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Introduction
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010, p.918), ‘meal’ can be
defined as an occasion when people sit down to eat food, especially breakfast, lunch or dinner.
There are five most common set meal times in the Western world yet are practiced nationwide.
They are breakfast, lunch, tea break, dinner and supper.
Apparently, dinner are always become the largest or the main meal of the day (Martin &
Chaney, 2006) but according to Davis (2004) one should “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a
prince and dinner like a pauper” (p.446). Her words tell us that breakfast is very important and
we need to eat more during breakfast compare to other meals. Many other nutritionists also
emphasize the importance of breakfast such as McAllister (2004), Wright and Larsen (2011),
Greene, Merendino and Jibrin (2009) because we need more energy in the morning than at night
due to the active tasks that we need to perform in the day (Wright & Larsen, 2011). Wright and
Larsen (2011) also stated that, “Studies shows that people who take breakfast perform better at
all task, have more energy throughout the day and tend to weigh less” (p.274).
Unfortunately Sindeli (2007), in a report on The Future of Mealtimes, revealed that
breakfast is ‘the most missed meal in Europe’ (p.130). As stated before, breakfast is very
important. So there would be a lot of negative effects when we skip the breakfast. Copious
studies have been carried out to identify the negative effects of skipping breakfast on the study
performance among students. A study carried out by a student in Murdoch University, Australia,
did not find any relationship between skipping breakfast and academic performance (Khan,
2006). Meanwhile, Phillips (2005) found that students who ate breakfast had a higher success
rate on General Biology exams than those students who skip it.


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Breakfast is an important contributor to the overall dietary quality of a human (Evans,
2009). This finding is complementary to another research carried out by Nicklas, O’Niel and
Berenson (1998) where they concluded that, people who do not eat breakfast have a significantly
lower nutritional status than people who take breakfast. All these finding however need more indepth study to confirm whether skipping breakfast can give negative effects on the academic
performance of students.
This study is set up to identify the effects of skipping breakfast to the academic
performance of the students.
The objectives of the study are;
1. To find out the importance of breakfast,
2. To investigate the trend of skipping breakfast among students and the effects if they skip
the breakfast
3. To relate the effect of skipping breakfast and the academic performance among students
in the Centre for Foundation Studies International Islamic University Malaysia (CFS
IIUM).
4. To find out whether the students are aware with the importance of breakfast.
This study will provide answers to the following questions;
1. What is the importance of breakfast?
2. What is the trend of skipping breakfast among students and what are the effects of
skipping breakfast?
3. What is the relationship of the effect skipping breakfast and the academic performance
among student in CFS IIUM?
4. Do the students aware with the importance of breakfast?


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This study will be carried out in order to find out how skipping breakfast can affect the academic
performance of the students and to create awareness to them about how important breakfast is
and they should not abandon it.
Literature Review
As breakfast always pointed as the most important meal of the day by many authors,
nutritionist and researchers like Davis (2004), McAllister (2004), Greene, Merendino and Jibrin
(2009), hence there must be a vast number of benefits we can gain by practicing breakfast.
According to Duyff (2011), after eight to ten hours without food, our body needs to replenish its
blood sugar supplies. Most importantly, the brain needs a fresh supply of blood sugar to use as
its main energy source, because it doesn't have any storage capacity like the muscle do. That
means it needs to refuel each morning so it has the energy for sustained mental work. Our
muscles also need a fresh supply of blood sugar to help fuel our physical activity.
Schmieder (n.d.) also claimed that “Starting your day with a good breakfast boosts your
energy, increases your attention span, and heightens your sense of well-being. You’ll be in better
control of your emotions.” (One Step at a Time: What to Do, para. 1). Having breakfast can also
help us in losing weight (Schlundt, Hill, Sbrocco, Pope-Cordle & Sharp, 1992; Wyatt, Grunwald,
Mosca, Klem, Wing & Hill, 2002) and lower the risk of heart failure (Djoussé & Gaziano, 2007).
Numerous researches have been carried out to identify the trend of skipping breakfast
among children and adolescent. Phillips (2005) had carried out a research on breakfast trend
among students in his college in Texas and he found that 34% from his samples do not take
breakfast. An Australian finding also provides a report on the study of an Australian survey of
699 thirteen-year-olds concerning the extent of skipping breakfast indicated that approximately
12% of the sample skipped breakfast (Shaw, 1998). A researcher concluded in his study that the


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younger the generation, the higher the rate of skipping breakfast (Zasshi, 2001). Therefore, we
can see here that the trend of skipping breakfast is high among teenagers whom are the students.
Skipping the breakfast might cause us to abandon all the benefits and importance. This
habit can promote the cardiovascular risk factors such as lack of exercise, smoking, high blood
pressure, and high serum total cholesterol (Zasshi, 2001). Hence, it may increase the risk of
having cardiovascular disease. Gaining weight is also one of the problem that can arouse when
we skip the breakfast (Berkey, Rockett,Gillman,Field & Colditz, 2003).
There are studies stating that breakfast can enhance the daily nutrient intake and
improvements in nutrient intake which can be associated with significant improvements in
student academic performance (Meyers, Sampson, Weitzman, Rogers, Kayne, 1989; Kleinmana,
Hallb, Greenc, Korzec-Ramirezd, Pattonb, Paganoe & Murphy, 2002). Therefore, here we can
relate how skipping breakfast would affect the student academic performance. Nicklas et al
(1998) said people who do not eat breakfast have a significantly lower nutritional status than
people who take breakfast. A book published by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) ‘Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science’ stated
that,
“The importance of nutrition for health and human well being is clear. It has direct
implication for physical health and particularly for how well the brain functions. We can
boost learning capacity through what we eat. For example, studies show that skipping
breakfast interferes with cognition and learning” (p.61)
The book also include several studies that support the statement like a study undertaken in the
United State examined the effects of school breakfast and academic performance among 1023
low income students from third grade through fifth grades. Result showed that children who


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participated in the study made significantly greater gain in overall standardised test scores and
showed improvements in math, reading and vocabulary scores (Understanding the Brain: The
Birth of a Learning Science, 2007). In Minnesota elementary schools, a three year Universal
School Breakfast pilot study showed a general increase in composite math and reading scores,
improved student behaviour, increased attendance and test scores (Minnesota Department of
Children, Families and Learning, 1998, as cited in Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a
Learning Science, 2007). All these studies proved that breakfast really can give positive effects
to the academic performance. Hence, what would it be if we skip the breakfast regularly? How it
can affect the academic performance? Howe (2003) said that, “hunger can affect their attention
spans, making it hard to learn. Short-term hunger often arises because a child has missed
breakfast" (p.44). He included in his book several previous studies regarding to the effects of
skipping breakfast,
“Studies in Peru and the United States showed that when nine to 11 years old children had
not eaten overnight or in the morning, they were slower in memory recall and made more
errors on test (Pollitt and others 1998)” (p.44)
Smith (2002) also stated that, skipping breakfast leads to deterioration in academic performance.
In process known as metabolic starvation, focused attention, recall and coping with complex
mental tasks becomes increasingly more difficult (Smith, 2002, p.107).
Although there are various studies undertaken in finding the relationship of taking
breakfast and academic performance, further research are needed to see how breakfast really
affect the academic performance for the students in CFS IIUM. There is need of compact
evaluations of the impact of skipping breakfast to the students.


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Methodology
This research paper is about to study the effects of skipping breakfast on the academic
performance among students in CFS IIUM. The objectives of this research are to describe the
importance of breakfast, to investigate the trend of skipping breakfast among students and the
effects if they skip the breakfast, to relate the effect of skipping breakfast and the academic
performance among students CFS IIUM and to find out whether the students are aware with the
importance of breakfast. In order to achieve these goals, several steps have been performed in the
research.
Sampling is the process of selecting units (e.g. people, organization) from a population of
interest so that by studying the sample may fairly generalize the results back to the population
from which they were chosen. For this research, the sample population is the students of CFS
IIUM. 20 respondents are selected randomly to complete the questionnaire and the age around 18
to 21 years old. All respondents are willing to complete survey questions. Simple random
sampling method was used to select the respondents.
Survey questions are created consisting of 5 questions and 2 simple IQ test questions.
Hence, the questionnaires are divided into two parts. The first part (Part A) consist of 5
questions, including demographic question, do they skip breakfast at the particular morning, their
awareness about the importance of breakfast, what is the reasons if they skip the breakfast and
what do they feel afterward in the class when they had skipped breakfast. The first question is
asking about gender. The next 2 questions are the ‘yes or no’ and the rest are multiple choice
questions. Respondents have to tick the most suitable answers for all the questions. They can
also answer the last three questions with their own opinion on the space provided.


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The second part (Part B) consists of two simple IQ test that have to be be done within 2
minutes only. The first IQ test is about spotting the difference in two pictures within a minute.
This test is carried out to test their focus.

Figure 1: The image used in the Focus IQ tests (The Wedding at Cana 'Spot the Difference',
(n.d.)


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Figure 2: The image used in the
Memory IQ tests
(Picture Memory Test, n.d.)

The second IQ test is to study the given symbols thoroughly in one minute, and they have to list
down all the symbols they remembered.
To avoid them from cheating or looking back at the photo to get the correct answer, soon
after they study the picture, they have to fold the photo and paste it with a double tape provided
on the paper. This test is carried out to test they memory.
The questionnaires were distributed among students of CFS IIUM in my class in the
morning. This is to make sure that they did not take their lunch yet so the students whom skipped
breakfast can be identified and their IQ can be tested just before they take any food. They have to
answer the questionnaire immediately when they get it because the IQ test have a required time
to answer which is two minutes only. The questionnaires are then collected after all the students
have finished answering.
I gave the questionnaires to 10 male students and 10 female students. Only 20
respondents are used in this study. The mark for IQ test from each respondent was total up and
calculated. The full mark appointed for the IQ test is 15 for focus test, 12 for memory test, and
the total is 27. Their marks will be converted to percentage and ranked with excellent


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(100% - 60%), pass (59% - 30%) and fail (29% - 0%). All the results will be transformed into
bar chart and pie chart.
I would like to test their focus and memory because these elements are very important to
perform in the class. Lack of focus and weak memory can affect their performance in the class
and indirectly can affect their academic performance in the college. Therefore, I would like to
examine whether skipping breakfast can affect their focus and memory in answering the IQ test.
Findings
Findings are discoveries based on facts, data or responses from the respondents who
participate in the research or experiment. In this study, I used survey questions to obtain
responds from the students to identify the effects of skipping breakfast to the academic
performance. I also undergo a simple IQ test to examine their focus and memory of the students
who take breakfast and skip breakfast.
After the data was collected and analyzed, it was transformed into a pie chart for Part A
question 5 and bar chart for Part B (IQ test result) to make it easier in making comparison. I
chose 20 respondents randomly from the students of CFS IIUM where there were 10 male
students and 10 female students.

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Number of Respondents who
Skip the Breakfast in the Morning

NO. OF RESPONDENTS

12
10
3

8
6

NOT BREAKFAST

6

BREAKFAST

4
2

7
4

0
MALE

FEMALE

GENDER

Figure 3: Number of Respondents who skip the breakfast

From 20 respondents, it is found that 11 from them skipped the breakfast on the day they
answered the questionnaire. Only 9 of them took breakfast. 6 out of 10 male students skipped the
breakfast while only 3 out of 10 female students skipped the breakfast. Therefore we can see
from the bar chart, male students tend to skip breakfast more than female students.
Although the number of students whom skipped breakfast is high, result from the
question 3 of the questionnaire found that all of the respondents admit that breakfast is important
and all of them gave the same reason that taking breakfast can provide energy in the morning.
At question 4, the 11 respondents who skipped the breakfast said that the reason why they
skip the breakfast is because they were lack of time to take the breakfast.

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Effects the Students Feels Whenever They
Skip the Breakfast

5%
20%

Lack of Focus
50%

Lack of Interest
Sleepy

25%

Other

Figure 4: Effects that the students feel whenever they skip the breakfast

The last question in the Part A was asking about what they feel in the class whenever
they skip the breakfast. Their responds were transformed into a pie chart above. Based on the
chart, majority of the respondents feels that they lack of focus in the class whenever they skip the
breakfast. 25% of them lack of interest to participate in the class and 20% feel sleepy in the class
whenever they skip the breakfast. Only 5% is got the other feeling which is hungry.

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The IQ Test Result
25%

Percentages

20%

20%
18%

20%

18%
15%

15%

Excellent
10%

10%

Pass
Fail

5%
0%
SKIP BREAKFAST

TAKE BREAKFAST

Group
Figure 5: The IQ Test Result

The next finding is the result of the IQ test. The figure above shows the ranking of the
result between two groups which are skip breakfast and take breakfast. On the ‘skip breakfast’
group, the respondents recorded the same percentage in both Excellent and Pass rank which is
18%. 20% of the respondents were failed in the IQ test whereas in the ‘take breakfast’ group,
only 10% failed the test. Although there were only 15% got excellent in the test for ‘take
breakfast’ group but 20% pass the test compare to the ‘skip breakfast’ group, only 18% pass and
the percentage of failed respondents in ‘skip breakfast group’ is significantly high.
Discussion
The trend of skipping breakfast among the students of CFS IIUM is high where 55% of
the respondents skipped the breakfast. 6 out of 10 male students skip the breakfast compare to
female students, only 3 out of 10 skipped the breakfast. This findings support the previous
research conducted by Zasshi (2001) at the Department of Public Health, Wakayama Medical


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University which found that the rate of skipping breakfast in men was twice as high as in
women.
Based on the IQ test result, we can see that high percentage of failing the test come from
respondents who skipped the breakfast. Since the test was to examined their focus and memory
skill, we can concluded that, the skip breakfast respondents tend to have weaker memory and
lack focus than the respondents who took the breakfast. This finding is complementary with the
results on question 5 from the questionnaire (Q5: What do you feel afterward whenever you skip
the breakfast?). Half of the respondent admitted that they become lack of focus in the class
whenever they skip the breakfast. This confirmed the study by Gajre, Fernandez, Balakrishna
and Vazir (2008) that skipping breakfast can give negative effects on the student’s attentionconcentration, memory and school achievement. Previous study also corresponded to this result
where people who had not eaten overnight or in the morning, become slower in memory recall
and made more errors on test (Howe, 2006).
Although many of the skip breakfast respondents failed the test, but from the statistic on
the IQ test result, their percentage on excellent rank was higher than the take breakfast group.
This result is unexpected and unsatisfactory. Excellent rank should be dominated by the take
breakfast group but only 15% respondents achieved excellent in the test compare to skip
breakfast group, 18%. When the questionnaires are collected, a few questionnaires were not
answered completely on the IQ test part although the respondents took the breakfast. This may
because of they were busy and do not have much time to answer the IQ test during that time.
This would avoid them to get excellent score in the test and affect the accuracy of the result.


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Since half of the respondents admitted that they become lack of focus in the class
whenever they skip the breakfast, thus the result of the IQ test was expected as more respondents
who skip the breakfast failed the test due to lack of focus. Respondents also admit that they
become lack in interest in the class whenever they skip the breakfast. Lack of focus, interest and
weaker memory can affect the performance of a student because those elements are very
important to absorb knowledge efficiently in the class. Therefore, it is clearly shown here,
students who skip breakfast can affect their academic performance.
Conclusion
This study investigates the effects of skipping breakfast on the academic performance
among students in CFS IIUM. Primary data were collected by randomly distributing
questionnaires to 20 students in CFS IIUM in the morning. A simple IQ test also attached in the
questionnaire to test their focus and memory on the morning they answer the questionnaire. As
mention earlier in the introduction, the purpose of this study was to find out the importance of
breakfast, to investigate trend of skipping breakfast and the effect of skipping breakfast, to relate
the effect of skipping breakfast to the academic performance among student in CFS IIUM and to
find out whether the student aware with the importance of breakfast.
The following conclusions can be drawn based on the findings of the study:
1. All the respondents claimed that breakfast is important as the source of energy in the
morning.
2. 55% of the respondents skip the breakfast and more male students skip the breakfast than
female students. Half of the respondents said that they become lack of focus in the class
whenever they skip the breakfast. This is the effect of skipping breakfast identified in this
study.


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3. More respondents who skipped the breakfast failed the IQ test compare to respondents
who took breakfast. It’s indicated that they really lack of focus and has a weaker
memory. Focus and memory is important to perform in the class. Hence, if we lack of
focus and weak memory, it can affect our academic performance. Effects of skipping
breakfast can be related to academic performance.
4. Lastly, all the respondents who skipped the breakfast said that lack of time was the reason
why they skip it.
The results of this study showed that, skipping breakfast can affect the students’ focus
and memory. Since the focus and memory is very important to excel in the study, thus we
can conclude that, skipping the breakfast can affect the academic performance of a student.
However, these findings are only true for CFS IIUM students and cannot be generalized to
other university students. The samples are too small and attaching a simple IQ test in the
questionnaire is not a very good idea because some of the respondents do not want to answer
the IQ test and this can affect the accuracy of the result. The IQ test questions also limited to
examine the focus and memory only.
A special experiment should be done by selecting bigger number of volunteers who are
willing to become either non-skipper or breakfast skipper group for at least a week for
observation rather than using random sampling. The IQ test has to be prepared in a special
examination and the questions should be varied. This is to make sure an accurate result to be
obtained and to identify more effects than focus and memory only. The same study should be
done to other university to see if there are any similarities in the results.


19

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Appendices
Appendices contain:
Appendix 1: Questionnaire
Appendix 2: Slides Presentation
Appendix 3: Drafts
Appendix 4: References

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The effects of skipping breakfast on the academic performance

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