European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

A CORRELATIVE STUDY TO ASSES THE BREAKFAST EATING HABITS AND COGNITIVE ABILITY AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OF MANGALURU

*Sharin Neetal D’Souza, Athira Saji, Athira Sasidharan, Ayishath Asima, Beneesha P. B., Betty Baby and Bijini Mareena Kuriakose

ABSTRACT

Background: Breakfast is known as the fuel of the brain. The human brain is a remarkable organ and the most metabolically active body organ. Objectives: To determine the breakfast eating habits and cognitive ability to compare the difference in the cognitive ability between regular breakfast eaters and irregular breakfast eaters and to find the relationship between cognitive ability and breakfast eating habits among high school students. Methods: Survey research approach and descriptive design was used to conduct the study. Self structured questionnaire and short term memory test, letter cancellation test and digit symbol substitution test was used to collect data from 100 samples from 2 high schools. The collected data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result: The study shows that majority of the students have excellent cognition level [59%] range of score between[61-80], 11% of the students have good cognition level the range of score between[41-60], and the 30% of students belongs to the average level of cognition between the range of.[21-40] Study also says that there was significant difference in the cognitive ability score among Group I and Group II. The study result highlights that there was positive correlation between breakfast eating habits and cognitive ability. Questionnaire “r”(1) =1.00, short term memory test “r”(1) =1.003, letter cancellation test “r” (1) =1.007, digit symbol substitution test “r” (1) =1.005. Conclusion: The findings of the study concluded that there is a positive correlation between breakfast eating habits and cognitive ability among selected high school students.

Keywords: Breakfast eating habits, cognitive ability.