Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?
And does eating a morning meal help us maintain a healthy weight?
The breakfast-is-best dogma is based on a blend of cultural
tradition and science (and more than a little cereal marketing). Some of
the earliest evidence goes back to the 1960s, when researchers in
Alameda County, Calif., documented residents' everyday habits. The
long-term study linked eating breakfast – along with other lifestyle
choices, including a good night's sleep and regular exercise – to
improved health and longevity. But in recent years, this association has
come under more scrutiny. And what's emerged points to a more
complicated conclusion.
For instance, researchers in Canada who
studied the habits of about 12,000 adults concluded that "breakfast
consumption was not consistently associated with differences in [body
mass index] or overweight prevalence." And a recent study published in
the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that, when it
comes to weight loss, breakfast eaters do no better – or worse – than
people who skip the morning meal.
Here's the deal: Lots of
American adults aren't sitting down to breakfast anymore.
In our
informal Twitter poll, almost 1 in 5 respondents said they skip the
morning meal entirely, or just drink coffee. Another 25 percent of
respondents grab a quick yogurt or energy bar at some point during the
morning. Our results mirror the findings of industry research. The NPD
Group finds that Americans are moving away from prescribed mealtimes.
The trend is most pronounced among millennials, who, according to NPD,
skip twice as many breakfast meals compared with older Americans. And,
increasingly, what millennials are choosing to eat in the morning – when
they make time for it – also marks a significant departure in eating
habits: They're often opting for a hot breakfast instead of cereal.
How do we square the "breakfast-is-the-most-important-meal" belief
with the shift in our eating habits?
If you sift through the
scientific evidence, there doesn't seem to be anything magical about
eating first thing in the morning. Lots of us aren't hungry until a few
hours after we wake up. If you're a "grab-a-yogurt-at-10 a.m." person,
that's OK. And waiting to eat anything until lunchtime might actually
work best for some of us. As we've reported, some dieters have found
success with minifasts.
So, is there a downside to skipping
breakfast – or not eating early in the morning? We put the question to
David Ludwig, an obesity researcher, nutrition professor at the Harvard
School of Public Health, and author of the book Always Hungry?
and his answer, in short, is this: What we eat in the morning may be
more important then when we eat it.
"If [your] breakfast is based
on highly processed carbohydrates [such as sugary cereals or sweet
rolls], it may be as bad [as], or worse than, skipping breakfast,"
Ludwig says. Why? All of those refined carbs and sugars can lead to a
spike in blood sugar and insulin. "The high insulin programs the body
for fat storage, making it hard to cut back calories," says Ludwig.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/13/477794736/breakfast-blowback-maybe-skipping-the-morning-meal-isnt-so-bad
