The above table depicts an association between breakfast skipping and health
consciousness of the students. A highly statistical significance was seen between
breakfast skipping and health consciousness. At this age teens tend to be more
self conscious about the way they look, thus choosing skipping breakfast as one
of the means to lose weight. They perceived themselves to be overweight in
spite of having normal weight and carried on weight loss practices8
. More of the
students were found to be moderately conscious about their health. The above
also shows the perception of students about the importance of meals, particularly
breakfast. More number of breakfast non-skippers feel that it is important to
have meals regularly, it does influence the body functioning (physical /mental),
they do feel weak or tired while attending school without having breakfast, it
does affect memory, attendance concentration and physical activity. Less number
of breakfast skippers felt the same. Skipping breakfast impairs attention and
short-term memory. Moreover, the impairment increases over time. Most of the
breakfast skippers aspired to have breakfast daily, as they knew there are some
benefits of having breakfast regularly.