September 2/Winterthur, Switzerland/The Globe and Mail -- A recent study of 656 schoolchildren in Winterthur, Switzerland, showed that children who skip the most important meal of the day are less fit. The researchers tested the kids’ abilities in five different areas: the 20-meter sprint, the shuttle run, standing long jump, sidewise jumping over a bar, and tapping between two circles with one hand.
Breakfast eaters scored better on the first three tests. For example, those who ate breakfast could do the sprint in 4.3 seconds versus 4.47 seconds for the non-breakfast eaters. In the long jump, those who ate breakfast could jump 124 centimeters on average compared with 115 centimeters for those who skipped the meal.