Almost everyone has been told as a kid that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Breakfast gives us the energy to start our day and maintain that energy throughout the day as well. More about the health benefits of breakfast can be seen in this study. While these are very good reasons to eat breakfast, I started to wonder about those people who don’t eat breakfast. Personally, I have a cup of coffee on my way to class and call that breakfast. I do not wake up early enough to either make myself breakfast or go buy breakfast, but I still am awake and alert all day as if I were to eat breakfast. Many studies have been done on the effect that eating breakfast has on people, specifically obese people trying to lose weight. In order for a person to lose weight, they must burn more calories than they ingest. An easy solution to do this is to skip a meal or eat less during each meal. David G Schlundt, James 0 Hill, Tracy Sbrocco, Jamie Pope-Cordle, and Teresa Sharp did a randomized clinical trial in order to see the role of breakfast in obesity treatment.
The study consisted of 52 obese women between the ages of 18-55. Depending on their baseline-eating habits, the women were randomly assigned to two weight loss programs. One program had the women eating breakfast and the other program did not. All other aspects of the programs were identical. The results of this 12 week study showed that the women who did eat breakfast lost more weight than the women who did not.
This study may have been done properly, however, in my opinion in order to get a better result in order to make a more confident conclusion, the scientists should have used more women, included men, had a smaller age group, or did the study for a longer period of time. The more data they could have obtained the more confident they could have been in their result. Additionally, it is unknown if some of these women were working out more than others. The burning of more calories could have impacted the results of this study.
Even with the many factors these scientists did not control for, or the great deal of chance as a result of the sample size, it can still be concluded that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The breakfast eaters were seen ingesting less food and calories than non-breakfast eaters, because they were more aware that they had already eaten more calories. In addition, less snacking took place in the breakfast eaters because they did not get as hungry as fast.
Overall, eat breakfast.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/55/3/645.full.pdf+html
Hey Candace, really great post! I myself am not a breakfast person. My mom used to nag me everyday about eating breakfast and I would shrug her off and leave the house with a cup of coffee. This routine got me through high school but I can confidently say I figured out it would not work in college. With my new routine along with constant sleep deprivation and stress I have found I need breakfast more than ever. While it’s still not my favorite meal of the day I feel it has really benefited me in the long run. Awesome post.
This is such an interesting topic to write about! I always try to have breakfast. Being that all of my classes this semester begin so late, I even set an alarm to wake up for breakfast and then go back to sleep for two more hours. Logically, it makes sense that when we consume that extra meal, it will in turn discourage from eating unhealthy throughout the day. In addition, the full feeling from breakfast likely impedes late-night eating. For these reasons and the ones you stated, it makes sense that the obese women in the experimental group of the study that you cited lost more weight in comparison to the women who continued to skip out on breakfast. With this being said, I think it is important to note that for breakfast to assist in losing weight or even just remaining healthy, it is important to eat a balanced and healthy breakfast as well. Here is an article that you might find interesting: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/healthy-breakfast-ideas-and-recipes#1
The article provides facts about what constitutes a meal as balanced. The point that I found to be most interesting was that you should have a high fiber breakfast with at least 5 grams of protein.
I think that in the study it should have been specified what the participants were eating for breakfast. I believe that if you were to eat waffles or pancakes for breakfast everyday loaded up with syrup and butter it would not have the same effect. But if the participants were eating egg white omelettes with vegetables every morning it would probably have a more significant effect. It is also important to notice that this study did not take into consideration the health of the people involved in the study. Along with being obese some of them could have other health problems that could effect the ability to lose weight.
I believe breakfast is one of the most satisfying and important meals of the day. Personally a bacon egg and cheese is one of my favorite meals of all time. Anyways, I think you should have discussed why it is so important not just for people who want to loose weight. After reading this article, http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/most-important-meal#1 i learned the reason its so beneficial is it boost your metabolism and gives you energy. When you have energy in the morning it will allow you to be more productive. I hope you enjoy the article I thought it was very interesting!