That skipping breakfast is primarily a gender issue has very different implications for the
promotion of health through nutrition, as compared with skipping as a result of poverty.
Providing free or subsidized meals will not help those who choose not to eat them. Instead,
skipping might be decreased by teaching the importance of eating breakfast, as well as building
self-esteem and informing adolescents about sound means of weight control. However, young
people cannot be expected to divorce themselves from their social and cultural context. Indeed,
further longitudinal and multimethod investigations are needed, since this research has shown that
even such a seemingly simple matter as skipping breakfast is intimately entwined with social and
cultural factors, and especially the pervasiveness of gender identities.