Text Review

Text Review

For my text review, I chose to focus on the importance of eating breakfast. Many college students simply do not have the time or energy to get up in the morning and eat breakfast. My smoothie project will hopefully encourage more students to prepare their breakfasts in advance and actually take the time to eat/drink something, whether in room or on the go. Many students also skip breakfast because they want to lose weight. I wanted to find a study that emphasized the importance of breakfast and the consequences of skipping. I then found an article in the International Journal of Obesity in 2003.

This article is a research study done by several Harvard researchers. It studies the correlation between skipping breakfast and weight change in adolescents. The article talks about how there have been many cross-sectional studies on the topic, but no longitudinal studies (Berkey). The purpose of this study was to find out whether skipping breakfast affected body fatness. This study was done by analyzing questionnaires over the course of 3 years. They specifically targeted 9-14 year olds, their body mass index, and their frequency of eating breakfast. They discovered the children who ate breakfast were more energetic then those who did. Those who were more energetic were more physically active (Berkey). However, they found out that there was a difference in children who were already overweight and children who weren’t. The children who were already overweight and skipped breakfast lost weight, whereas children who were at a normal weight and skipped breakfast actually gained weight. Children who ate breakfast in all groups did better in school. The study also looked at other factors that could have influenced results, including race, age, and inactivity.

This text’s ethos is strong because the researchers come from very prestigious institutions. They all work/study  in various departments at Harvard, including the Department of Medicine, Department of Nutrition, Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, and Department of Epidemiology.  The text was also published in the International Journal of Obesity, another very credible source.  Additionally, the text had to be approved in order to be submitted to the publication, as shown at the bottom of the text where it states both the receiving date and the date the study was accepted and published (March and May respectively). The study itself gains ethos because it examines all factors to ensure there are no confounding factors that could skew the results. One weakness of this text is that the study examined results from self-reported questionnaires, which could be very biased. The fact that it is self-reported ignores a huge percentage of the population that hadn’t responded to the questionnaire. This especially leaves out certain socioeconomic classes who don’t have the time to respond.  In order to make this study more credible, the researchers should target specific areas that they believe are missing. According to the study, 94.7% of the respondents were Caucasian children.  Therefore, the argument that race might not be a confounding factor is not valid.

Overall, this article supports my claim that breakfast is necessary to work well in school and remain energetic throughout the morning. The best way to do that, of course, is a good old fruit-veggie smoothie.

Work Cited

Berkey, Rockett, Gillman, Field, and Colditz. "Longitudinal Study of Skipping Breakfast and      Weight Change in Adolescents." Nature. International Journal of Obesity, 17 Mar. 2003.        Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v27/n10/full/0802402a.html>.