Abstract

JOFRE, Jorge Martín et al. Importance of breakfast in the nutritional state and information processing in school children. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2007, vol.6, n.2, pp. 371-382. ISSN 1657-9267.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of the breakfast meal in children’s nutritional status and mental processing. Anthropometric measures of 26 children (13 males, 6.3 to 6.9 years old) were used to evaluate nutrition levels. Eight tests of the K-ABC Kaufman battery were applied: numbers recall, word order, hand movements, gestalt closure, triangles, analog matrixes, spatial memory and series of photos. The obtained K-ABC averages were inside normal ranges, with certain dispersion of values and decreased values for some (Z score of hand movements, triangles, numbers recall and sequential processing: -2.30, -1.50, -1.41 y -1.71 respectively). The children that didn’t have breakfast showed diminished nutritional status and deficiencies in their sequential, simultaneous and composite mental processing.

Keywords : mental processing; simultaneous; sequential; breakfast; nutritional status.

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