Correlation checklist: does breakfast raise grades?

Question

An advocacy group notes that children who eat breakfast get better grades, and argues schools should mandate breakfast to raise achievement.

Before accepting that breakfast causes better grades, list every reason the two could correlate without breakfast being the cause.

Accepted Answer

Run the correlation-to-causation checklist for X (eating breakfast) and Y (grades). 1. Confounders (common causes). Household income and stability drive both: families that reliably serve breakfast also tend to have more books, quieter homes, engaged parents, and money for tutoring, all of which lift grades. Breakfast may be a marker of a supportive home, not the cause of the grades. 2. Reverse causation. More organized, self-regulated children (who tend to do better in school anyway) are also the ones who sit down and eat breakfast. The trait causes both. 3. Selection bias. If breakfast-skip…

Correlation checklist: does breakfast raise grades?

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