Reacción a "Reaction to study associating skipping breakfast or eating breakfast away from home with increased risk of psychosocial problems in childhood and adolescence"

Interesting and novel analysis on the association between psychosocial behavioural problems and breakfast consumption habits, including breakfast quality and place of consumption in Spanish children and adolescents aged 4-14 years. The authors have analysed data from the National Health Survey (2017), which has the advantage of including a large sample, but also some limitations to the study, as the authors acknowledge.  

On the one hand, it is a cross-sectional study, i.e. it provides a snapshot of the situation; all the information was collected at the same time. As the authors state, they found an association between usual breakfast consumption, breakfast quality and eating breakfast at home with a lower likelihood of psychosocial problems. On the other hand, the information on food consumption habits allows us to consider some indicators, but does not allow us to estimate the usual intake and other details that would be necessary to assess the association observed, so it will be necessary to further analyse the problem with other studies with appropriate design and protocols for this purpose. 

Although some controversy has arisen, several studies have shown that regular consumption of an adequate quality breakfast in schoolchildren and adolescents, especially if it is consumed at home, with sufficient time and company, is associated with favourable indicators of the nutritional characteristics of the usual diet, health and well-being. The results of the study by López-Gil et al. are consistent with this.