Skipping Breakfast and Incidence of Frequent Alcohol Drinking in University Students in Japan: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Frequency of alcohol drinking is a potential predictor of binge drinking of alcohol, a serious social problem for university students. Although previous studies have identified skipping breakfast as a predictor of various health-compromising behaviors and cardiometabolic diseases, few studies have assessed the association between skipping breakfast and the incidence of frequent alcohol drinking. This retrospective cohort study included 17,380 male and 8799 female university students aged 18–22 years admitted to Osaka universities between 2004 and 2015. The association between breakfast frequency (eating every day, skipping occasionally, and skipping often/usually) and the incidence of frequent alcohol drinking, defined as drinking ≥4 days/week, was assessed using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models. During the median observational period of 3.0 years, 878 (5.1%) men and 190 (2.2%) women engaged in frequent alcohol drinking. Skipping breakfast was significantly associated with the incidence of frequent alcohol drinking (adjusted hazard ratios [95% confidence interval] of eating every day, skipping occasionally, and skipping often/usually: 1.00 [reference], 1.02 [0.84–1.25], and 1.48 [1.17–1.88] in men; 1.00 [reference], 1.60 [1.03–2.49], and 3.14 [1.88–5.24] in women, respectively). University students who skipped breakfast were at a higher risk of frequent alcohol drinking than those who ate breakfast every day.

Macronutrient Intake, Sleep Quality, Anxiety, Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet and Emotional Eating among Female Health Science Undergraduate Students

“…There is strong evidence of an association between breakfast skipping and overweight/obesity [ 48 ], but in this study, there was a lack of association between overweight/obesity and skipping breakfast. In a cross-sectional study, students who skipped breakfast were more vulnerable to alcohol consumption and its toxic effects [ 58 ]. Furthermore, in this study, a lack of a significant association was observed between both unhealthy habits.…”

Living Arrangements Predict Frequent Alcohol Consumption Among University Students: A Retrospective Cohort Study

“…Eligible participants of this retrospective cohort study were 20,659 university students enrolled at Osaka University between 2010 and 2015. The study protocol was described in detail elsewhere 9 (Supplementary Materials). Briefly, this study included 17,774 (86.0%) university students after excluding 106 (0.5%) students aged ≤17 and ≥23 years, 19 (0.1%) students with baseline alcohol consumption frequency of ≥4 days/week, 814 (3.9%) students with missing baseline data, and 1,946 (9.4%) students with no measurement of alcohol consumption frequency at annual health checkups over the 6-year observational periods after their baseline checkups (Figure S1).…”