UC Irvine

Rates of food insecurity in the military, which are higher than those in comparable communities, remain an ongoing issue. Adolescents with military parents may also struggle to cope with frequent moves and parental deployments. Using a state-wide database that included children of military personnel, we measured the association between skipping breakfast on the day of the survey and mental health screening data scores. Over 43% of students in our sample reported skipping breakfast. These students reported higher mean, median, and 90th percentile stress level scores (μ = 10.9, M50 = 10, M90=19) than the students who did not skip breakfast (μ = 9.4, M50 = 8, M90=16). Groups with increased levels of high distress (>90th percentile) included students who skipped breakfast (17.3%), females (14.4%), gender minorities (36.3%), American Indian/Alaska Native (16.0%), and Hispanic/LatinX students (13.1%). Logistic regression showed that skipping breakfast increased a student’s odds of developing stress by 2.1 (OR 2.1). These findings demonstrate an association between skipping breakfast and mental stress in an adolescent population at increased risk for both.