Una investigación sobre la calidad del desayuno en una población de futuros maestros

Resumen

Introduction: The analysis of the breakfast eaten by some groups such as university students, which in the future may become in teachers, can be of interest for two reasons: to contribute to possible improvements in their diet and to promote healthy habits models. Aim: To know the composition and quality of the breakfast types (including what is named as midmorning intake) carried out by future teachers from both, qualitative and quantitative point of view. Methods: The study was conducted in 88 university students (future teachers) with a mean age of 21.4 ± 0.8 years. Consent and training were taken prior to record for seven consecutive days of their breakfast and midmorning intakes. The quality of these intakes was assessed first using an adaptation of the criteria enKid study (according to the distribution of consumption of dairy products, cereals and fruits) establishing a score of 21-0 points and quality range of: “Good”, “Upgradeable”, “Poor“ or Bad (Table 1). In addition, the impact of changing food throughout the morning shots (variability) of the above ranges has been analyzed. It has also been evaluated the energy (kilocalories) and macronutrients (carbohydrates, lipids and proteins) of ingested food using current food composition tables. Statistical analysis of the data collected for this study was performed using SPSS 15.0. Results: Of all the possible early breakfast recorded (n = 616), 4.38% is not performed and 60.5% of midmorning intake is not made. The average overall score enKid standard quality (not considering the bakery) for the first breakfast studied would be 9.86 ± 3.59 (Poor) and would increase (p <0.05) at an average of 11.50 ± 3.85 (Upgradeable) if both, breakfast and mid morning intake are considered together. Moreover, more days changing the type of food consumed (aspect that we have called as variability) higher the average score of enKid standard quality and also when increasing the energy provided by food in the morning intakes and approaching to the optimal (≥ 25% daily kilocalo - ries).However, assessing the morning intakes together and considering if they are balanced on the recommendations of energy and regarding the distribution of macro-nutrients that contributes to the daily diet, only 20.45% of the students would have a breakfast considered as healthy. Discussion: There is a coincidence with other studies regarding intakes of early breakfast (which does not occur at around 5%) but data obtained for midmorning intake is usually lower for us (missing about 60%). However, specific studies on “second breakfast” are only a few and on adolescents. On the other hand, in line with other authors, when assessing again the desirable quality of breakfasts, a small percentage of students would consume breakfast of acceptable overall quality, and our data are in the low range too (only around 20 % of students would perform healthy morning intakes). This issue, as it happens in other previous studies, again is highlighting the need to act in improvement of breakfasts in order to achieve a healthy daily diet groups such as in university students. However, those data that we have linked with the importance of having midmorning intake, cannot be compared as there are no similar studies in Spanish university students. Conclusions: Since making a healthy breakfast is recognized as important by the experts and given that about 80% of the breakfasts analyzed would be unbalanced, we think that it is necessary to promote its improvement in groups, such as those university students, target of the study. Thus, it is proposed to increase the mid morning intake that, added to breakfast (whenever in both, cereals of better quality are chosen against bakery products) would help to increase the desirable variation of food, to get a better energy intake and a wider balance of macronutrients in order to be closer to follow a healthier diet.