A low glycaemic index breakfast cereal preferentially prevents children's cognitive performance from declining throughout the morning

This study investigated whether the glycaemic index (GI) of breakfast cereal differentially affects children's attention and memory. Using a balanced cross-over design, on two consecutive mornings 64 children aged 6–11 years were given a high GI cereal and a low GI cereal in a counterbalanced order. They performed a series of computerised tests of attention and memory, once prior to breakfast and three times following breakfast at hourly intervals. The results indicate that children's performance declines throughout the morning and that this decline can be significantly reduced following the intake of a low GI cereal as compared with a high GI cereal on measures of accuracy of attention (M=−6.742 and −13.510, respectively, p<0.05) and secondary memory (M=−30.675 and −47.183, respectively, p<0.05).