Translating nutrient recommendations for breakfast into practical advice for individuals and health professionals

Background and objectives: The derivation of breakfast recommendations on nutrient intake and their translation into culturally tailored food-based dietary advice can help dietitians to develop better public health nutrition strategies to optimize food choices at breakfast. The International Breakfast Research Initiative (IBRI) consortium developed evidence-based nutrient recommendations for a balanced breakfast that could be applied by a variety of end users including policymakers, healthcare professionals and consumers. The objective of this project is to develop tools to translate the IBRI nutrient recommendations for breakfast into practical advice for individuals and to support dietitians in patient education. Methods: Two research groups based in Austria and Spain will conduct the study. As a first step, an algorithm will be developed to condense 20 nutrient targets from the IBRI Europe and North America recommendations to a single continuous score from 1-100 that could easily be incorporated into a digital tool. French food consumption data from INCA 3 survey will be used to validate the score through analyses of correlations between the proposed score and energy content and energy density of breakfast and overall diet quality. Focus groups will be organised with dietitians and people from the community to identify key features and functionalities required for a digital educational tool for breakfast. Local food consumption surveys will be reviewed to identify the most common food groups consumed at breakfast. Results: A digital toolkit will be developed and tailored to meet the needs of dietitians to educate patients on the importance of breakfast and how to choose a balanced breakfast. A second intuitive digital tool, based on the breakfast score will aim to educate individuals who don't have access to a dietitian. A pilot study will be conducted with dietitians and people in the community to understand the user-friendliness and practicality of the tools. Conclusion: This study will explore whether IBRI recommendations can be applied as an evidence base for practical educational tools and campaigns to educate individuals and patients on how to choose a balanced breakfast. We also aim to investigate if the toolkit can be readily adapted to different countries by importing national food composition data and applying the IBRI targets to national dietary reference values.