Middle-school students who consumed school breakfast perform better on tasks assessing cognitive flexibility and executive function.

Breakfast improves nutrient adequacy, weight management, and cognitive performance in children; however, less is known regarding the quality, type, and location of breakfast, particularly in adolescents. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine whether consuming breakfast at home or school elicits greater cognitive performance compared to skipping breakfast in 236 urban middle-school students from low-income households. During a single school day, 3 hours after the start of school, students completed questionnaires assessing breakfast consumption followed by a 20-minute computerized cognitive performance assessment, CNS Vital Signs. Students were retrospectively grouped according to the following breakfast habits on the morning of testing: school breakfast (SCHOOL [N = 36]); home breakfast (HOME [N = 50]); school and home breakfast (BOTH [N = 21]); or no breakfast (SKIP [N = 85]). SCHOOL had higher cognitive flexibility (61.5 ± 4.2 percentile-for-age) vs SKIP (46.7 ± 2.6 percentile-for-age, P = .006) and HOME (49.8 ± 3.8 percentile-for-age, P = .05), but was not different versus BOTH (50.6 ± 9.6 percentile-for-age, NS, P = .220). SCHOOL had higher executive function (58.3 ± 4.2 percentile-for-age) vs SKIP (48.0 ± 2.5 percentile-for-age, P = .04) and BOTH (36.8 ± 7.2 percentile-for-age, P = .003) and trended towards higher scores vs HOME (48.7 ± 3.5 percentile-for-age, P = .08). No other differences occurred. Students who eat breakfast at school perform better on select cognitive function tasks compared to those who skip breakfast or eat breakfast at home, highlighting the importance of school breakfast in middle-school adolescents from low-income households.