Do you often skip breakfast when you are nervous before an exam? You don’t think that breakfast can help in enhancing your performance before or during the crucial test?
However, the better the fuel your brain gets, the better aces you will get in your board exam. An apt breakfast or morning meal can energize your system, improve your alertness and sustain you through the long exam hours.
Eating healthy breakfast gives a physiological and psychological advantage. Many cognitive studies on children tell us that if they skip breakfast—they lose focus and concentration as well as the ability to think and problem-solve. Breakfast helps improve mental performance and concentration during morning activities.
Children who do not eat a good breakfast become tired in school and have shorter attention spans, especially late in the morning. Another good reason to make sure that children have a balanced breakfast is that four out of five children do not get enough vitamins and minerals from lunch and dinner alone. By adding breakfast, children are more likely to get the vitamins and minerals they need. Also, children who don’t eat a good breakfast tend to eat more junk food during the day -- snacks that are high in fat and sugar and low in nutritional value.
Many teenagers skip breakfast to lose weight as it seems to be an easy method to do so. But this surely isn’t a great idea. Breakfast skippers tend to eat more food than usual at the next meal or nibble on high-calorie snacks to curb the hunger. Several studies suggest that people tend to accumulate more body fat when they eat fewer, larger meals than when they eat the same number of calories in smaller, more frequent meals. Without eating breakfast, you’re more vulnerable to cravings and less likely to make healthy choices in the morning and throughout the day. That’s a disaster — whether you’re on a diet or just eating for good health.
So you still have time. Incorporate these healthy breakfast options to crack the board exam with aplomb.
Make breakfast healthy by adding 3-4 food groups. The healthy breakfast choices will be any fiber rich cereal like wheat / oats porridge/ multigrain cereal/ Indian breads with 1-2% fat milk or yogurt, fruits and nuts.
Choose the food that the child enjoys. For example, a chapatti roll filled with vegetables and soya chunks/ paneer or simply pick up a high fiber cereal like oats or musseli (not sugarcoated) with milk , nuts and some fruits or a whole wheat cheese cucumber sandwich, which is both quick and healthy.
Keep convenient foods on hand, such as yogurt, fruit, cheese, instant oatmeal.
Have your child eat ‘breakfast-to-go’ on the bus, in the car, or while walking to school, if hard pressed for time in the morning. Remember, well begun is half done.
Sandhya Pandey
The author is Chief clinical nutritionist, Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Department, Fortis
