Background: Breakfast is the most vital meal of the day, which helps to start metabolism by providing the energy and nutrients required by the body. Skipping breakfast by nursing officers can negatively affect their health and also patient care. Hence, the study aimed to assess the practice of skipping breakfast and its associated factors among nursing officers.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a randomly selected sample of 384 nursing officers of the Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila. A self-administered questionnaire and validated measuring scales were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test using IBM SPSS version 25.
Results: Among the nursing officers, 53% were in the normal BMI category, while 36% were reported as overweight or obese and 10% were underweight. Of the participants, 12% (n=47) skips their breakfast as a practice while 48.2% (n=185) skipped sometimes. During the 14 days prior to data collection, 42.7% (n=164) and 40.0% (n=154) of nursing officers had skipped their breakfast 1-3 times and > 4 times, respectively. The main reason for skipping breakfast was lack of time (31%, n=119) (48%, n=174). Age (p=0.042) and marital status (p=0.007) were significantly associated with the practice of skipping breakfast.
Conclusion: The study revealed that most nursing officers skip breakfast as a practice. Age and marital status were the significant predictors for skipping breakfast. Appropriate interventions are needed to improve the good practices related to breakfast and extensive assessments are required to evaluate the consequences of skipping breakfast.

Keywords
Skipping Breakfast , Nursing officers