Comparative Study Of Breakfast Intake Among School Children In Urban And Rural Areas Of Nsukka

Abstract

A comparative study of the breakfast intake of school children between the ages of 10-12yeras in Nsukka urban and rural areas was investigated. Sixty urban and thirty rural school children were randomly selected from three primary schools. Data was collected using a structured; pre tested and validated questionnaire which was analysed using statistical package for social science (SPSS) and descriptive statistics (frequency distribution and percentages). Chi-square analysis was also used to compare the breakfast intake of these school children in the urban and rural areas. The result of the study showed a higher breakfast consumption of children in the rural than the urban areas though the result was not statistically significant. The percentage distribution showed that 90% of the rural children took breakfast compared to the 78.3% of the urban school children while 10% and 21.7% of the rural and urban children respectively did not consume breakfast. The factors that contributed to the rural children not taking breakfast include unavailability of food, and not being hungry. In the urban area the factors that affect breakfast intake include lack of time, not being hungry and unavailability of food. However, there was a significant difference (P<0.05) in the availability of food in rural homes and the quantity of food purchased in the market compared to the urban dwellers. The rural dwellers had more food in their homes and purchased less food in the market. Poverty was implicated as the major cause of low breakfast intake. Other factors that affected breakfast intake were family size, occupation of the head of the house hold and educational level.

Keywords: Breakfast intake, Rural, Urban, School Children, Factors