Background and objectives: Although Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents offers advice for breakfast in China, current breakfast consumption habits are unclear. The aim of this study was to describe the frequency of breakfast consumption among adults and explore its associations with daily food consumption and daily nutrient intake.
Methods and study design: A stratified cluster sampling technique was employed in this cross-sectional study. Demographic characteristics, breakfast consumption, and daily food and nutrient intake were investigated.
Results: Dietary data were collected for 3251 adult residents through interviews. We determined that residents with an annual income of <CN¥10000 were the group with the highest rate of breakfast consumption. Among adults living at home, those who were retired had the highest proportion of breakfast eaters (92.1%), whereas among adults not living at home, commercial services and production personnel had the highest proportion of breakfast eaters (83.8%). Residents who never ate breakfast had a lower daily intake of rice, dark-colored vegetables, pork, poultry, and fish and shrimp and a higher daily intake of bean products and instant foods (p<0.05). Residents who never ate breakfast had a higher daily intake of energy, fat, and carbohydrates, and a lower intake of protein, retinol, vitamins A and C, carotene, Ca, P, K, Mg, Zn, Se, and Mn (p<0.05).
Conclusions: Breakfast skipping may influence the daily intake of nutrients. A simple and important public health message should be delivered to target populations.