New Website 


Show Cart
Your Cart is currently empty.
Advanced Search


Lost your Password?
No account yet? Register
German-style breakfast best for kids
Jun 26 2007, Western Mail

PARENTS who want their children to do well at school should forget sugary cereals and send them off in the morning with a German-style breakfast of ham and cheese, according to new research.

Work by a scientist based in Swansea found that the protein-packed meal is the ideal start to the day.

Scientific experiments by David Benton, a professor of psychology at Swansea University, show the combination of ham and cheese has the most significant impact on a range of factors.

These include helping memory, improving work rate and maximising attention levels.

From tests done on six and seven-year-old children in Swansea, it was found that ham and cheese is also far better than the sugared cereal with which millions of children in the UK traditionally start their day.

Hidden cameras in primary schools showed children who had breakfasts with high sugar levels were more disruptive, fidgety and concentrated less on lessons like maths and English.

The analysis of the traditional British breakfast was based on the glycaemic loading (GL) index of the different foods.

The index measures the rate at which carbohydrates release glucose into the blood stream.

Sugary foods, such as popular breakfast cereals taken with two spoonfuls of sugar, accompanied by a waffle and maple syrup, had a high GL rating and led to a slump in performance by late morning.

A breakfast of scrambled egg, bread and jam plus a yoghurt, had a medium GL score. But ham and cheese, accompanied by a low-fat spread on wholegrain bread, scored best with a very low GL rating.

Professor Benton explained yesterday, “It is all down to the glucose release of the breakfast into the bloodstream.

“The slower the release, the better the pupils were found to perform in school.”

The professor said the same principles applied to adults in the workplace.

He said, “Slow-released glucose gives pupils better memory but it also works for adults.”

Professor Benton’s team studied pupils who attended a breakfast club for four weeks, eating breakfasts which had high, medium and low GL on separate days but the same number of calories.

After breakfast, hidden cameras filmed the pupils as they got on with reading, writing and arithmetic.

Professor Benton’s team of researchers found the pupils on low GL breakfasts spent 26% of their time doing their class-work, while those on the high GL only worked 18% of the time.

Professor Benton added that a low GL breakfast was also good for general health and helped stop obesity by discouraging eating between meals.

He said,“The high protein in the breakfast will release into the system slowly, and therefore it will suppress the appetite for longer, and prevent children from wanting snacks.”

The professor says that a breakfast of bacon, egg and sausage may actually be a healthy one in moderate quantities, as it also releases glucose slowly.

But Dr Helen Crawley, a lecturer in nutrition at Kingston University, said there was no scientific or medical evidence yet that food intake could improve people’s concentration.

She said, “In experiments like this there are so many variables so there is no way of measuring all of them.” She also pointed out that ham and cheese contain a lot of salt.

Ham it up Cheese and ham is the best start in the morning for pupils before school, a new study claimsPicture: Rob Norman Tradition Scrambled egg and sugary cereal is bad for kids first thing in the morning
 
[ Back ]