Children who don’t eat breakfast may have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to international NewScientist journal.
There is already evidence that skipping breakfast raises the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in adults.
The researchers studied 4,000 children aged 9 and 10 years old in the United Kingdom. They gathered information on how often the kids had breakfast, measured each child’s body fat and collected blood samples.
Half of the children then took part in one-on-one interviews with the researchers, in which they attempted to remember everything they had eaten the day before.
The kids who reported regularly skipping breakfast had 26 per cent higher levels of insulin in their blood after a period of fasting than those who reported eating breakfast every day. They also had 26 per cent higher levels of insulin resistance.
Among the children who managed to reconstruct their full menus from the day before, kids who ate high fibre cereal breakfasts had lower insulin levels and insulin resistance than the children who had any other breakfast types.
After controlling for factors including socio-economic status and levels of physical activity, the results were still significant.
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