Normative and cognitive correlates of breakfast skipping in 9–11-year-old schoolchildren in Wales

Aims: This study aims to explore associations of attitudes towards breakfast, self-efficacy and normative perceptions (in relation to parents, peers and teachers) with breakfast skipping in 9–11-year-old schoolchildren in Wales. Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed. Data were collected using self-report measures of attitudes towards breakfast, parental and peer descriptive norms, parental, peer and teacher related injunctive norms, self-efficacy for eating breakfast and self-reported habitual breakfast skipping. Participants were 1672 year 5 and 6 pupils within 52 schools in 9 local education authorities across North, South and West Wales. Results: Bivariate analyses indicated that all variables, with the exception of peer-related injunctive norms, were associated with breakfast skipping. In multivariate ordinal logistic regression analyses, adjusted for clustering at the school-level, only attitudes towards breakfast, parental descriptive norms and self-efficacy for eating breakfast were significantly associated with breakfast skipping. Conclusions: The associations reported in this paper highlight the need to consider attitudinal and normative factors when attempting to facilitate change in children's breakfast eating behaviours, as well as investigating means of enhancing self-efficacy. Impacts of school breakfast provision on these factors, as well as the impact of these factors on uptake of school breakfast provision merit investigation.