Author: Benjamin Mashburn, COMM 2311-601; Photographer: Emily Miller, COMM 1318 Photography 1; Featured photo by Emily Miller
Be honest, did you eat breakfast this morning? Or were you in a mad dash out the door and forgot? If that’s the case, you may be hurting yourself.
Research shows skipping breakfast can harm you academically. For instance, a 2021 study published in Public Health Nutrition shows Australian children in grades 4 through 12 who always skipped breakfast were associated with lower cognitive and emotional engagement compared to those who never skipped it.
In another set of data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the connection between dietary behavior and academic grades using the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey included high school students instead of college students, but the results are clear.
The study found 42% of high school students who ate breakfast for a full 7 days before the survey earned mostly A’s. Only 20% of students who ate breakfast the full 7 days earned mostly D’s or F’s.
In addition to affecting you academically, skipping breakfast might also affect you physically.
“Nutrition is our body’s fuel,” says SPC Health and Wellness Counselor Rachael Montgomery. “It fuels our brain. It fuels our muscles. It fuels our whole system.”
The long-term effects of not eating can be extreme. “It causes fatigue,” she says. “It causes lack of focus, and on the extreme side, it can cause hallucinations.”
Even if students know breakfast is good for them, it appears a lot of students still miss it anyway.
CDC research from 2024 shows that in 2023 more than half of students, 51.8%, ate breakfast on 3 or fewer days, and 17.9% of students skipped breakfast every day.
Here at SPC, Rebecca Canon, the director of Health and Wellness, says breakfast foods are what students ask for the most at SPC food banks. She says many of them can’t make it to the cafeteria where it is served.
“Students offer several reasons why they struggle to make it to the cafeteria for breakfast,” Canon says, “busy schedules and time constraints, late nights and changing sleeping patterns (especially in the Residence Halls), lack of convenience or accessibility, food insecurity and financial constraints, perceived lack of healthy or appealing options, or social factors/stigma.”
Nutrition experts from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommend lots of options for quick breakfast ideas such as peanut butter, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, instant hot cereal, and sliced fruit.
Canon emphasizes if students find they are struggling to find time to take care of themselves, they should visit the SPC Health and Wellness department. She says counselors there can help students build a plan to be as healthy and “well-fueled” as possible.
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