Quatela et al. BMC Nutrition (2020) 6:1 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40795-019-0317-4 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Breakfast consumption habits of Australian men participating in the “Typical Aussie Bloke” study Angelica Quatela1, Amanda Patterson1,2,3, Robin Callister4,2,3 and Lesley MacDonald-Wicks1,2,3* Abstract Background: Breakfast is often regarded as “the most important meal of the day” but there is limited reporting of the foods/beverages currently constituting a typical breakfast. This study investigated current breakfast habits of Australian men. Methods: Men aged 18-44y were recruited from metropolitan and regional NSW Australia and completed an online survey investigating breakfast consumption habits and other lifestyle parameters including demographic characteristics and waking habits. Results: 112 men participated. Most (83.5%) ate breakfast ≥5 times/week and consumed this meal before 8 am (84.0%). Breakfast for habitual breakfast eaters consisted of one or more of the following foods or beverages eaten ≥5 times/week: breakfast cereal (50.0%), milk for cereal (51.1%), fruit (28.7%), toast (13.8%), spreads (11.7%), yogurt (12.8%), and/or coffee (40.4%). Breakfast may also include the following foods 1–4 times/week: eggs (58.5%), bacon (30.9%), juice (19.1%), and/or tea (17.0%). Conclusion: A majority of Australian men younger than 45 years old were found to eat breakfast most days of the week. Cereal, milk and fruit were the most common foods consumed for breakfast. Breakfast is considered to be an important meal among health professionals and we found a majority of Australian men do eat breakfast regularly. Approximately half of the young men in the study reported consuming cereal and milk for breakfast most of the time, a breakfast option that is linked to higher daily wholegrain, fibre and micro-nutrient intakes. Keywords: Breakfast, Morning meal, Australia, Males, Young adults Background multicultural country like Australia. Prior to this study, Breakfast is often referred to as the most important meal the most recent data regarding Australian breakfast of the day [1] because it may contribute to better nutri- habits were reported by Williams [12] in a secondary ent adequacy [2], which is believed to play a significant analysis of 24-h recall data from the Australian National role in the prevention of chronic disease [3]. Also, break- Nutrition Survey (NNS) in 1995 [12, 13]. Williams re- fast is possibly protective against weight gain [1, 4]. The ported that cereal products, milk and fruit were the evidence available to support these beliefs, however, is main foods consumed for breakfast by the majority of limited and/or contradictory [1, 4–11]. Australian adults but noted that there were differences There is a lack of current data regarding the consump- between males and females in the foods and beverages tion or skipping of breakfast, as well as the habitual consumed at breakfast, with a significantly lower per- foods or beverages that constitute a typical breakfast in a centage of men than women consuming fruit. As the 1995 NNS was conducted over 20 years ago, it is likely * Correspondence: [email protected] that the food habits of Australian men have changed. 1Discipline of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health Sciences, The Therefore, the aim of the Typical Aussie Bloke study University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia 2Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition, The University of was to obtain current information regarding the break- Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia fast habits and the food and beverage intakes that Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Quatela et al. BMC Nutrition (2020) 6:1 Page 2 of 9 constitute a breakfast meal among a sample of < 45 y Eaters (HBE) if they consumed breakfast 5 or more Australian men. Furthermore, the literature reported times during the week, Occasional Breakfast Eaters lack of evidence base regarding reasons for consuming (OBE) if they consumed breakfast 3–4 times a week or breakfasts and timing of its consumptions. Therefore, Habitual Breakfast Skippers (HBS) if they consumed his study adds to the current literature by examining the breakfast 1–2 times a week or rarely/never. Habitual reasons for consuming or skipping breakfast and the food and beverage intake for breakfast was defined as an timing of breakfast consumption. intake of these items ≥5 times per week. This definition was used to identify the foods/beverages that comprised Methods a typical breakfast for this cohort. Questions regarding Study design reasons for consuming or not consuming breakfast were Men aged 18-44y were recruited from metropolitan taken from Reeves et al. [16]. The questions can be (Newcastle) and regional (Tamworth) areas in NSW found in Additional file 1. Australia for a multicentre cross sectional study. The Questions investigating the timing of waking, the tim- project was advertised using conventional (e.g., radio, ing of consumption of the first meal of the day, and the television, magazines) and social (e.g.; university blogs, types of food and beverages consumed for breakfast university Facebook) media, recruitment fliers and in were specifically developed for this study and were pilot- person recruitment in key community locations (e.g., tested among staff at the University of Newcastle. The Callaghan campus, Tamworth Education centre, Hunter questions are described in Additional file 1. Medical Research Centre, gyms). Participants completed The questions investigating foods and beverages con- an online survey and underwent a measurement session sumed at breakfast were provided in the form of a short in the laboratory at the University of Newcastle’s Calla- food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and the questions ghan Campus or Tamworth Education Centre. Partici- are described in Additional file 1. pants provided implied consent for the online survey Only participants who reported consuming breakfast and written consent for the laboratory measurement ses- at least 1–2 times per week were asked to complete the sion. The protocol was approved by the University of questions about the types of food and beverages con- Newcastle’s Human Research Ethics Committee (H- sumed, and reasons for consuming breakfast. 2015-0199) and data were collected from September to December 2015. Statistics Statistics were performed using Stata 13.1 (StataCorp Inclusion and exclusion criteria LLC, College Station, Texas, USA). Descriptive statistics, Participants were included if they were male and aged such as means and distributions were calculated, and in- 18 to 44 years. The exclusion criteria were: being unable ferential statistics, including Chi Square or Fishers Exact to attend a laboratory measurement session, having had tests, one way ANOVA or independent t test, were used cosmetic surgery that would change the shape of the to compare HBE versus OBE versus HBS, and for HBE body, having or being treated for a thyroid condition or consuming this meal early (EBE) versus late (LBE). insulin dependent diabetes, or claustrophobia. Partici- pants were screened for eligibility by the first eight ques- Results tions of the online survey. Demographic characteristics Data were obtained from 112 men, 87 subjects were Survey from Newcastle and 25 from Tamworth. The majority of The online survey (Survey Monkey Inc., San Mateo, CA, participants were born in Australia (87.5%) and only one USA) consisted of 56 questions. Following the screening (0.9%) was of Aboriginal or Torres Strait islander des- questions, eligible participants were directed to the cent. A majority of participants were married or in a de remaining 48 questions which investigated parameters facto relationship (51.7%) and had a university qualifica- such as demographic characteristics, breakfast consump- tion (56.3%). Most (55.3%) were in full time employ- tion habits and waking habits. ment, 25% were studying, and only a few men (2.7%) Standard demographic and dietary questions were were on home duties or unemployed. The distribution used where possible and most were consistent with of income was wide with slightly more (55.4%) in the questions from the Australian Longitudinal Study of lower income brackets (ranging from ≤AUS$25,000 to < Women’s Health (ALSWH) [14] or Australian Bureau of AUS$99,000 per annum). Most lived with one or more Statistics [15] surveys. The question assessing habitual other people (88.4%) and did not have any dependent breakfast consumption was from the 1995 NNS [13] and children (70.5%). The majority of the participants were details of the question can be found in Additional file 1 employed as professionals, paraprofessionals, managers [13]. Participants were defined as Habitual Breakfast or administrators, administrative assistants, sales or Quatela et al. BMC Nutrition (2020) 6:1 Page 3 of 9 personal service workers (88.4%); only a minority participants reported consuming servings of meat (ham, worked in trades or as manual workers, machine opera- steak or chicken) and six men reported consuming vegeta- tors or drivers (9.8%). bles (such as mushroom, zucchini, spinach, carrots, capsi- cum, celery or onion). Five participants reported consuming Comparison of breakfast consumption patterns almond or coconut milk and six reported consuming either The majority of men were HBE (83.9%, n = 94) consum- oats or nuts. Two men reported consuming cheese and two ing breakfast ≥5 times a week.