The International Breakfast Research Initiative (IBRI)1,2 was established to develop a harmonised methodology for deriving evidence based quantitative nutrient recommendations for breakfast and to inform more meaningful public health messages to help consumers optimise food choices at breakfast. A standardised approach was used to analyse the nutritional profiles of breakfast patterns in the context of nationally representative dietary data from Canada, Denmark, France, Spain, UK and US. Breakfast consumers within each database were subsequently divided into tertiles of daily diet quality by the Nutrient Rich Foods Index (NRF)3
In all countries, the frequency of breakfast consumption by age was high and U shaped with children and older adults having a higher frequency of consumption. Breakfast contributed 16% to 21% of daily energy intake. In all countries, breakfast was a carbohydrate- and nutrient- rich meal, providing more carbohydrates (including sugars), thiamine, riboflavin, folate, calcium, potassium and magnesium, and less vitamin A, fats and sodium relative to its contribution to daily energy intakes. No association between energy intakes at breakfast and NRF tertile was observed in most countries. However, for protein and fibre and for most micronutrients (except sodium), intakes at breakfast tended to be higher in the upper tertile of NRF. In contrast breakfast intakes of total and saturated fats, sodium and added sugars were lower in most countries. These results indicate that the breakfast intakes of consumers in the upper tertile of NRF could effectively inform the setting of attainable quantitative recommendations for improving total daily dietary quality. However, although there was a remarkable degree of consistency in the nutritional contribution of breakfast across the countries studied, these analyses highlight the need to tailor this methodology to the specific target population.
Breakfast in human nutrition: the International Breakfast Research Initiative. Nutrients 2018 May 1;10(5). doi: 10.3390/nu10050559.
Towards an evidence-based recommendation for a balanced breakfast - a proposal from the International Breakfast Research Initiative. Nutrients 2018 Oct 18;10(10). doi: 10.3390/nu10101540
Drewnowski A. Uses of nutrient profiling to address public health needs: from regulation to reformulation. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 2017, 76, 220-229.
Paid honorarium as member of the International Breakfast Research Initiative by Cereal Partners Worldwide; Ulster University received a research grant from Cereal Partners Worldwide to conduct to UK analyses for the International Breakfast Research Initiative.
A balanced breakfast is widely accepted as a healthy dietary pattern and one which will help to ensure that consumers achieve their RDI of micronutrients such as iron and calcium and also dietary fibre. This presentation will examine the consumption of breakfast in Europe with particular attention to children and adolescents and consider how we can increase and sustain consumption of balanced breakfasts. Recent data suggests that there has been a decline in breakfast consumption in adolescents. Our studies suggest that regular breakfast consumption is associated with academic, psychosocial and health benefits. We need to promote breakfast consumption, particularly in schoolchildren for both nutritional reasons and because this may be an effective strategy to address inequalities in health and psychosocial outcomes. One strategy may be the implementation of inclusive school breakfast programmes and the evidence and effectiveness of these interventions will be considered. The barriers to adopting a regular healthy breakfast regimen will be considered along with strategies to improve intake in adults and children. Health promotion messages are more often adopted by the “worried well” rather than those individuals who would benefit most. There is a clear need to target the hard to reach and less receptive sectors of the population who do not attend to health messaging. Government is frequently not the preferred source of information and the use of alternative messengers should be considered. The differences between actual intake and recommended intake may be related to consumers’ inaccurate perceptions of what is required intake of which nutrients, what is a “portion” etc but providing information alone is not effective in achieving adoption of sustained behaviour especially in relation to eating. This paper draw upon psychological and nutritional knowledge to explore effective strategies to narrow the intention behaviour gap as it applies to encouraging habitual breakfast intake.
Registration, travel and accommodation funded by Cereal Partners Worldwide.
The most popular approach to the development of quantitative nutrient guidelines for breakfast is the application of a blanket value of about 20 % of the RDA, based on the contribution of breakfast energy to daily energy intake (ca 20%). This approach takes no account of prevailing nutrient intakes at breakfast or of any association between breakfast nutrient quality and overall daily nutrient quality. The International Breakfast Research Initiative (IBRI) set out to develop breakfast nutrient guidelines to take account both of breakfast and daily nutrient intakes and of the association between the two. The project involved harmonised analysis of national nutrition databases in Canada, Denmark, France, Spain, the UK and the US.
The first step in the strategy to define quantitative nutrient guidelines for breakfast was to apply the Nutrient Reference Intake score to each individual in each survey database. This assigns positive values to an individual’s total daily intake of: protein, fibre, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium and negative values to added sugar, saturated fat and sodium. For each nutrient, intakes were expressed as a % of regional values used for nutritional labelling. Thus the higher the NRF score, the more optimal the daily nutrient intake.
The second step was to rank the individual NRF scores in each country to identify the upper tertile of this score. This sub-set represented that third of the population with the highest overall quality of daily nutrient intakes. Within this sub-sample, breakfast nutrient intakes were define for each country. A series of five guiding principles were established to use the values from across the 6 centres to derive a proposed recommendation for breakfast nutrient intake. These values will help policy makers, dietitians and industry shape educational and reformulation programmes to allow consumers to enjoy healthier breakfast.
Paid honorarium as chair of the International Breakfast Research Initiative by Cereal Partners Worldwide.