Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire

Abstract

The Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) is a psychometric instrument designed to assess the behaviors, beliefs, and feelings of children aged 9 to 11 years regarding breakfast consumption. Developed by Tapper and colleagues in 2008, the scale is crucial for understanding the psychological drivers behind eating habits during late childhood, a period where breakfast skipping often begins to increase, impacting educational attainment and overall health. The BAQ consists of 13 items utilizing a Likert questionnaire format, intended for use in assessment and evaluation protocols for school-based or community-based breakfast promotion initiatives.

Keywords

Breakfast attitudes, eating behavior, childhood nutrition, attitudes, health promotion, cognitive function, psychometric scale, Likert questionnaire.

Authors

Tapper, K., Murphy, S., Lynch, R., Clark, R., Moore, G.F., Moore, L.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire is to quickly and reliably measure the underlying psychological orientation—encompassing beliefs, feelings, and self-reported behaviors—that 9 to 11-year-old children hold toward eating breakfast. This age group is critical as they transition toward adolescence, a phase characterized by declining rates of breakfast consumption.

By quantifying these attitudes, the BAQ serves as a valuable tool for researchers and health practitioners engaged in breakfast promotion initiatives. It allows for the identification of specific cognitive or affective barriers to regular, healthy breakfast habits, thereby enabling targeted interventions aimed at improving dietary behavior and subsequently enhancing health and school performance.

Construct

The BAQ measures the multi-faceted attitude construct related to breakfast consumption. This construct is operationalized through three primary components: Behavior (self-reported habits and actions regarding breakfast), Belief (cognitive components such as perceived importance or consequences of skipping breakfast), and Feeling (affective components like enjoyment or boredom associated with eating breakfast).

The theoretical underpinning emphasizes that positive attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and feelings regarding breakfast in childhood are strongly linked to favorable health outcomes, improved cognitive performance, and better academic success. Extensive laboratory and school-based evidence supports the link between adequate breakfast consumption and short-term improvements in attention, memory, mood, and motivation, which ultimately contribute to better educational attainment.

Validity

The validity of the Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire was established during its development phase by Tapper et al. (2008). Specifically, construct validity was confirmed, ensuring that the scale accurately measures the intended psychological construct of attitudes towards breakfast, distinct from related but separate factors such as general dietary knowledge or self-control.

This validation process involved examining the factor structure of the scale to ensure that the items load correctly onto the hypothesized domains (Behavior, Belief, and Feeling) and that the scale differentiates effectively between children with different self-reported eating habits, providing robust evidence for its utility in research and applied settings.

Reliability

The reliability of the BAQ was confirmed in the foundational study by Tapper, Murphy, Lynch, Clark, Moore & Moore (2008). Reliability ensures the consistency and stability of the measurement over time and across different items within the scale.

The authors confirmed that the instrument possesses acceptable psychometric properties, indicating that it consistently measures the breakfast attitudes of 9–11-year-old children, making it suitable for use in longitudinal studies or intervention assessments where measurement consistency is paramount.

Factor Analysis

The BAQ is comprised of 13 items distributed across multiple domains reflecting the complex nature of attitudes toward breakfast. While the scale appears to possess a dominant underlying factor—likely a general valence of positive or negative attitude—the items are grouped into specific conceptual domains based on the attitude component they assess:

• Eating Behaviour: Items assessing self-reported habits, such as frequency of consumption and quality of food eaten (e.g., eating healthy foods or missing breakfast).
• Importance of Breakfast: Items related to the perceived value of eating, including affective responses (e.g., hating breakfast or finding it boring).
• Cognitive Effects (Concentration & Energy): Items linking breakfast consumption status to academic readiness and physical state (e.g., ability to concentrate or feelings of tiredness).
• Feelings of Well-being: Items assessing general subjective feelings in the morning based on whether breakfast was consumed.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychometric Self-Report Questionnaire

Format: 13-item Likert questionnaire (Responses typically utilize a structured format ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement).

Language Available: English (Original development language).

Population Group: Children and Pre-adolescents.

Age Group: 9–11 years old.

Population Details: Developed specifically for use with children in late primary or early middle school settings in contexts such as Great Britain, where the scale provides insight into the psychological factors contributing to declining breakfast consumption rates.

Test Methodology: The questionnaire is designed for easy, rapid administration, typically via self-completion in a classroom or small group setting. The scoring process involves summing or averaging responses across the 13 items, requiring careful reverse-scoring for negatively phrased statements (e.g., “I often miss breakfast”) to ensure accurate overall attitude measurement.

Keywords

Child development, cognitive performance, dietary assessment, school health, eating habits, psychometrics, intervention assessment, nutritional attitudes.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source content.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 2008

Permissions and Fee: Information regarding current licensing, permissions, or associated fees is not detailed in the primary reference. Researchers seeking to utilize the Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire should consult the corresponding author, K. Tapper, for specific usage agreements, particularly for commercial or large-scale applications.

Reference’s

• Tapper, K., Murphy, S., Lynch, R., Clark, R., Moore, G.F. & Moore, L. (2008). Development of a scale to measure 9-11 year olds’ attitudes towards breakfast. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62, 511-518.
• Pollitt, E. (1995). Does breakfast make a difference in school? Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 95(10), 1134-1139.
• Wesnes, K. A., Pincock, C., Scholey, A., & Benton, D. (2003). Breakfast and cognitive performance. Nutritional Neuroscience, 6(2), 119-125.

Items of the Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The 13 items of the Breakfast Attitudes Questionnaire, categorized by attitude component and domain, are listed below:

• 1. I usually eat healthy foods for breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)
• 2. I often miss breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)
• 3. It’s okay to miss breakfast (Attitude Component: Belief; Domain: Importance of breakfast)
• 4. I hardly eat anything for breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)
• 5. I hate eating breakfast (Attitude Component: Feeling; Domain: Importance of breakfast)
• 6. I usually eat unhealthy foods for breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)
• 7. I can concentrate in class even when I’ve missed breakfast (Attitude Component: Belief; Domain: Concentration)
• 8. I usually have a snack at morning break instead of breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)
• 9. I feel okay in the mornings even if I haven’t eaten breakfast (Attitude Component: Belief; Domain: Feelings of well-being)
• 10. Eating breakfast is boring (Attitude Component: Feeling; Domain: Importance of breakfast)
• 11. I’d rather have a snack at morning break than eat breakfast (Attitude Component: Feeling; Domain: Importance of breakfast)
• 12. If I miss breakfast I feel more tired in the morning (Attitude Component: Belief; Domain: Energy)
• 13. I usually eat a good breakfast (Attitude Component: Behaviour; Domain: Eating behaviour)