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FORGOING BREAKFAST IS TRENDING
..and the foregoing headline is misleading
By Ed Goldman
Kellogg, the manufacturer of Froot Loops, Special K and Rice Krispies, says its cereal division “has stalled as more people forgo breakfast.”
What?!! People are skipping breakfast, the most self-important meal of the day?! (In addition: that’s how you spell “forgoing”?)
The Break of Dawn
How can we face doing our jobs, which entail sitting at our desks, issuing stern memoranda or lying on the telephone all day without the fortification of bacon, eggs, hash-browns, toast and orange juice each weekday morning?
How do we face discussing the lawn with our garden consultants on the weekend unless we start the day with waffles, pancakes or French toast, Jimmy Dean sausage and a Bloody Mary?
Oh, the humanity! What has happened to Affluent White America?
The shocking news comes from a very small item in a recent issue of The Economist, the weekly magazine that’s always far more interesting than its name would suggest. (I guess The CPA, The Accountant and The Bean Counter were taken. Given the chance, I’d have named it The Abacus, for its old-timey feel.)
Since the item was short and devoid of either attribution or news sources, we have no clear idea of why, first thing in the morning, people are eschewing chewing. Knowing how you depend on The Goldman State for 98 percent of your news 2 percent of the time, I decided to enlist the aid of this column’s chief researcher, Sopwith Dhatt.
Mr. Dhatt learned his trade pretending to be a Pakistani-based Help Desk staffer for whenever one’s computer doesn’t work no matter how many times one switches it off then on. A transcript of our Zoom call follows.
THE GOLDMAN STATE: Good morning, Sopwith! I see you’re having breakfast. Would you like me to call back?
SOPWITH DHATT: Not at all, my very good friend. (Bites into what appears to be either an Egg McMuffin or a runny sponge) You are—?
TGS: Your client. The Goldman State.
SD: And how is the weather on your side of the pond, my very good friend?
TGS: Would you cut that out?! You’re in your office, about a mile from mine.
SD: No, I am in Paki–
TGS: I can see the Arby’s sign through your window. I don’t think there’s an Arby’s in your country. — Look, Supwith, I need to know what you found out about why millennials, Gens X, Y and Z, and members of the LGBT community are no longer into breakfast.
SD: That is a lot of initials and acronyms, my very good–
TGS (Holds up to the camera a check clearly made out to Supwith Dhatt): This will go into the mail the moment you provide your findings.
SD: (Switching tones from Colonialism Mock-Courtesy to Hard-Nosed-I’m-So-Much-Smarter-Than-You tech-speak): Affirmatory. Here are the data, with a two- or three-percent margin of error. They derive from a cross-sectional population-level study of the prevalence of breakfast skipping among children and adolescents–
TGS: Hey, now we’re getting some–
SD: Silence, Puny Earthling. (Reading)”Participants were grade 4–12 students, 8–18 years old, in South Australian government public schools who took part in the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. The prevalence of breakfast skipping never, sometimes, often, or always was calculated for the overall sample and stratified by gender, school grade, socioeconomic status and geographical remoteness. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative risk ratio of sometimes, often, and always skippers compared with never skippers, according to demographic characteristics.”
TGS: Maybe this is a little too weedy for my readers. And me.
SD: “Overall, 55 percent of students reported never skipping breakfast, 17.4 percent reported sometimes skipping, 18 percent reported often skipping, and 9.5 percent reported always skipping breakfast.”
TGS: My, look at the time. I’ve gotta–
SD: “Skipping breakfast was more prevalent among females, students in senior grades, and those living in socioeconomically disadvantaged and regional and remote areas. Analyses disaggregated by gender revealed that grade level gradients in breakfast skipping were more marked among females compared to males.”
TGS: Uh…could you send me this link? I might’ve missed–
SD: Go online to bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/) And now, please have the common decency to let me finish.
TGS: I sincerely apolo–
SD: “Breakfast skipping among children and adolescents appears considerably more prevalent than previous research suggests. Drivers of breakfast skipping across population sub-groups need to be explored to better inform strategies to promote breakfast consumption.”
—Well, when I finally got Sopwith to hit the LEAVE button on the Zoom screen I realized all this talk had made me hungry. But not for breakfast. The statistics had made everything sound so unappetizing. And in that moment it dawned on me that I had a consultant on my payroll who was a cereal killer.
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).
Yes, Virginia
A Weekly Blog by Virginia Varela
President, Golden Pacific Bank, a Division of SoFi Bank, Inc.
photo by Phoebe Verkouw
Golden Pacific Bank, a division of SoFi Bank, N.A. is a longtime proud sponsor of local deserving non-profits. In fact, in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, we were awarded the coveted Corporate Citizenship Award for championing community service in the greater Sacramento communities.
We believe in and support education. In fact, SoFi Bank is one of the largest lenders to students in the nation—and remains committed to helping students “Get Their Money Right.”
A local public nonprofit that Golden Pacific supports is “The Dominguez Dream,” an organization that “is committed to empowering children in underserved communities to achieve their full potential through Literacy and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics).”
According to its website, “The Dominguez Dream collaborates with elementary schools to provide literacy and STEAM programs to 3,500 students in 11 schools and aims to bridge the educational achievement gap by providing a positive and lasting impact on students, parents, educators, schools and the surrounding community.”
Another great organization we enthusiastically support is the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera’s (SP&O’s) Educational and Community Outreach program. In its “LINK UP!” program, students in grades 3-5 are invited to join the SP&O in an interactive activity that offers a collection of instruments for students to play, musical development workshops, and student performances with the symphony in a culminating concert.
I have been thrilled to attend these concerts combining young students with professional musicians; it was an incredible experience for the kids, their families, the professional musicians and the audience. These delightful and meaningful performances will be forever etched in my mind.
Let’s remember our kids at all levels of community and at any age or stage in life. Let’s help give them a leg up early in life through the most important gift of all: education.
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