Childhood obesity has increased by 59% in developing countries over the past three decades 1 and is now a major global public health problem. Understanding the modifiable behaviours associated with energy intake and expenditure is an important part of combating the global obesity epidemic, given its established links with adverse health conditions such as type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Eating breakfast regularly is a key component of a healthy diet. Missing breakfast has been positively associated with metabolic changes, overweight and obesity in paediatric studies that were primarily conducted in high‐income countries 2. It is common among children and adolescents in the Asian and Pacific region, with 32% regularly missing breakfast in Malaysia 3 and 41% in Fiji 4. However, no studies have looked at missing breakfast, or its association with the weight status of adolescents, in Bangladesh and that was the aim of this study. This study was particularly important given the combined increase in childhood overweight and obesity in the country: 13.4% during 1998–2003 and 16.9% during 2010–2015 5.