Unfavorable Behaviors in Children Run in Packs! Dietary and Non-Dietary Modulators of Attentional Capacity

Abstract

Children's cognitive performance can be influenced by behaviors such as eating breakfast in the morning. The aim of this analysis was to investigate the mediating effects of breakfast behavior and other lifestyle habits on eye-hand coordination and attention. In a secondary analysis of the CogniDROP study, children from the 5th and 6th grade of a comprehensive school in Germany (n = 223) performed a simple computerized Visual Attention Task and answered a questionnaire about behavioral patterns, i.e., skipping breakfast on a school day, frequency of physical activity (PA) outside school, and nighttime sleep. An association matrix was constructed to show the relationship between the variables. Almost 11% of children left home in the morning without breakfast, more than 9.5% of children reported poor sleep quality, 24.9% slept less than the recommended 9 h, and girls were insufficiently physically active. Sleep duration, bedtime, and PA correlated with skipping breakfast. Better sleep quality was positively related to reaction time in the Visual Attention Task. Overall, the data suggest that unfavorable behaviors in children tend to run in packs, just as skipping breakfast in the morning seems to be associated with other unfavorable habits, which impairs children's eye-hand coordination and attention.

Keywords: attention; behavior; breakfast; physical activity; sleep.

Figure 1

Computer tasks: (A.) Visual Attention Task. 3-min task to test the response time. The green squares had to be clicked consecutively with the mouse cursor. (B.) Behavior questionnaire (an example of questions and answers).

Figure 2

Relations between the studied variables based on the Kruskal–Wallis test and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Skipping breakfast and non-school PA were entered as categorical variables; response time in the Visual Attention Task, step counts, sedentary, sleep duration, bedtime, wake up-time, and BMI were entered as continuous variables. Sex and sleep quality were entered as dichotomous variables. The arrows show significant correlations between behavioral characteristics. BMI = Body Mass Index, PA = physical activity. * p ≤ 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.