Dados do Trabalho

Título

Association between chronotype, skipping breakfast and overweight in brazilian adults

Introdução

Chronotype reflects an individual’s preferred time of the day to realize daily activities and can be classified as morning, intermediate, or evening type. Some studies point to a relationship between the chronotype and general health, especially in nutritional status. Evening types are associated with skipping more meals than morning types, especially breakfast, which is considered an important health marker and a behavior associated with overweight/obesity.

Objetivo

This study aims to evaluate the association between the chronotype, skip breakfast and the prevalence of overweight in Brazilian adults.

Métodos

Participants should answer an online questionnaire, with questions that included: sociodemographic data, body weight and height, The Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) and breakfast frequency in a week. Participants with Body Mass Index (BMI) >25,0 kg/m² were considered overweight. The participants were classified into three categories for the chronotype, according to the corrected sleep midpoint on free days (MSFc): evening (MSFc>361min), intermediate (MSFc 241-360min) or morning type (MSFc<240min). Individuals who ate breakfast 3 times a week or less were considered skippers.

Resultados

The study evaluated 120 Brazilian adults between August and September of 2021, including 96 (80%) females and 24 (20%) males, with mean age 35 ±11,8 years. Generalized linear regression modeling was used to analyze the association between BMI according to breakfast consumption or not and chronotype. The GLM test showed that there was no significant interaction between BMI and skip breakfast (B = 0,373; p = 0,716; 95%CI -1,65 - 2,40) as well as found no association between BMI and evening types when compared with the other chronotypes (morning - B = 1,847; p = 0,286; 95%CI -1,56 - 5,25 and intermediate - B = 2,198; p = 0,213; 95%CI = -1,28 - 5,67). This results differ from the literature, but the non-association may be related to age and the Covid-19 Pandemic, which allowed individuals to do their activities at home, giving more time to organize their morning schedule, including breakfast consumption.

Conclusões

In conclusion, there was no association between skipping breakfast, chronotype and being overweight.These findings may be the result of change in routine caused by the pandemic, which contributed to an increase in breakfast consumption. Furthermore, the highest mean age in the sample may have favored this result. More studies are needed to confirm these findings.

Palavras-chave

Chronotype. Breakfast. Overweight.