Gender Differences in Body Mass Index and Breakfast Skipping among School Children. Meta-analysis Download PDF

Breakfast skipping and obesity are common among children, and co-existing might have deleterious consequences. Investigating gender-related differences is important for an effective intervention. Therefore, this meta-analysis aimed to assess gender differences in body mass index and breakfast skipping among Saudi children. PubMed, MEDLINE, EBSCO, and the first 100 articles from Google Scholar were searched from inception up to November 2023. The keywords used were breakfast skipping, breakfast intake, body mass index, obesity, overweight, screening time, sleep duration, and Saudi Arabia. An Excel sheet including the study type, region of publication, year of publication, breakfast consumption among males and females, the number of participants, and body mass index was used for data extraction. Five studies included 4922 schoolchildren from different regions of Saudi Arabia. There were no differences between males and females regarding breakfast intake, either when breakfast was percentages or mean± SD. Odd ratio: 0.09, 95% CI: -0.06-0.25, P-value for overall effect: 0.25, and odd ratio: 1.10, 95% CI: 0.80-1.53, P-value for overall effect: 0.56. Body mass index was higher among males and compared to their female counterparts, but did not amount to statistical significance. P-value, 0.09; Odd ratio, -1.28.09; 95% CI, -2.78–0.22. No differences were evident between males and females regarding breakfast intake and body mass index among Saudi schoolchildren; further studies investigating sleep patterns, texting, and their relationship to obesity are recommended.