Breakfast nutrition

Most teachers would probably agree that a good breakfast helps with concentration in the class room.

Nutritionists consider breakfast the most important meal of the day. Yet many schoolchildren are still going without it for one reason or another. Bad idea!

Breakfast, as the word suggests, literally means 'breaking the fast'. After going 10-12 hours overnight without food, children's energy reserves are low and their bodies and perhaps more importantly their brains, need fuel.

What's more, research shows that people who regularly eat breakfast tend to have better diets overall and are more likely to be able to maintain a healthy weight than those who skip their first meal of the day.

Like any other meal, a balanced breakfast should include a mixture of foods from the different food groups. Breakfast cereal with milk provides many important nutrients such as calcium, iron, dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals.

Breakfast is generally based on breakfast cereals, fruit and bread. The average breakfast can supply up to a quarter of your daily fibre intake but a much lower proportion of fat intake.

Children especially benefit when breakfast is eaten - a healthy breakfast can provide children with nearly half of their daily needs of many essential vitamins and minerals.

Breakfast ideas and recipes:

• Kidspot's breakfast recipes section
• Healthy breakfast ideas
• Best breakfast recipes
• Breakfast and school
• Breakfast nutrition
• Get a healthy start to the day
• Breakfast for hungry minds
• Breakfast for kids
• Tempting fussy eaters
• The importance of breakfast
• Top breakfast ideas slideshow

This article was supplied by the team of Nutritionists at Kellogg's for Kidspot, New Zealand's leading education resource for parents.

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