Evaluating the relationship between breakfast pattern and short-term memory in junior high school girls.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between breakfast pattern and short-term memory in guidance-school students. Memory improves for subjects who have eaten breakfast. It appears that breakfast consumption influences cognition via several mechanisms. What children eat for breakfast before going to school is very important. A total of 150 junior high school girls were taken from a subject pool in four schools in Shiraz (capital of the Fars Province in Iran). They filled out the socio-economic questionnaires as well as food frequency questionnaires for breakfast and provided two-three day breakfast records in two different seasons and their short-term memories were evaluated by Weksler test socio-economic conditions and dietary intakes were analyzed. The results of the study showed that there was no correlation between parents job, students mean age and their school grades with their memory scores. Dietary analysis demonstrated a negative correlation between local soup consumption in breakfast and memory scores. Food record analysis showed no correlation between fat, cholesterol, protein, vitamin B6, B12, calorie and iodine intake in breakfast and memory scores, but there was a positive correlation between carbohydrate, iron and vitamin B3 intake in breakfast and memory scores, similarly there was a positive correlation between B12 intake in the breakfast and students' average school grades during the year.