Is Breakfast Really that Important?

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-breakfast18sep18,0,2213526.story?coll=la-home-health

SHELLEY RATTET of Framingham, Mass., has lost about 25 pounds these past few months. It was the first time the 55-year-old clinical psychologist had lost weight in 10 years.

One of the changes she made: Making sure that she ate a good breakfast.

Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, disdains the morning repast. He hasn't eaten breakfast in 20 years, ever since he started running early in the mornings.

He says he's skinny and healthy and never felt better.

Whatever you do, don't skip breakfast.

Breakfast: It's the most important meal of the day.

Such pronouncements carry almost the aura of nutritional religion: carved in stone, not to be questioned. But a few nutritionists and scientists are questioning this conventional wisdom.

They're not challenging the practice of sending children off to school with some oat bran or eggs in their belly. They acknowledge the many studies reporting that children who eat breakfast get more of the nutrients they need and pay more attention in class.

They do say, however, that the case for breakfast's benefits is far from airtight — especially for adults, many of whom, if anything, could stand skipping a meal.

"For adults, I think the evidence is mixed," says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University who hasn't eaten breakfast in years because she is just not hungry in the morning.

"I am well aware that everyone says breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I am not convinced," Nestle wrote in her book, "What to Eat." (She later received many e-mails from readers telling her that they were relieved to hear it.) "What you eat — and how much — matters more to your health than when you eat."

A few scientists go further than this. They say it may be more healthful for adults to skip breakfast, as long as they eat carefully the rest of the day.

"No clear evidence shows that the skipping of breakfast or lunch (or both) is unhealthy, and animal data suggest quite the opposite," wrote Mattson, possibly the ultimate anti-breakfast iconoclast, last year in the medical journal the Lancet. Advice to eat smaller and more frequent meals, he wrote, "is given despite the lack of clear scientific evidence to justify it."

Mattson admits that he hasn't proven his case yet. His studies are still preliminary. (continued in article)

i hope this is true, since i hardly ever have breakfast, unless coffee is considered breakfast.

I always eat breakfast. If I don't, I find I don't have much energy in the morning. I thought the whole deal with the eating breakfast thing was that it gets the metabolism going? Works for me.

I used to skip breakfast for an additional half-hour of sleep 😬

THis is good to know -- thanks for hte article. I have been trying to tell my friend this and he thinks it is BS but now I have an article to send him.

Originally posted by Council#13
I used to skip breakfast for an additional half-hour of sleep 😬

same for me

i find that i have much more energy by claiming that extra sleep.
as far as skipping meals, if im really hungry i eat. if not, i dont.
i dont believe we have to follow a set eating schedual.

but then again everyone's body is different. some people only feel healthy
with like 5 scattered meals throughout the day

It's important. That being said I rarely eat breakfast, generally my caffeine fix starts my day.

Originally posted by PVS
i hope this is true, since i hardly ever have breakfast, unless coffee is considered breakfast.

Same for me, either cause Im just not hungry or I dont have time. I dont want to eat breakfast for the sake of eating breakfast.

But it depends on your lifestyle I believe, at the moment Im doing just fine without breakfast...Ill eat a bigger lunch, or eat earlier if I get hungry. However in the next few months Ill be starting weight/fitness training, and I was talking to a mate who knows all the diet/workout side of it and he tells me Ill need to starting increasing breakfast intake to burn while training otherwise I wont have the energy, so it'll change for me.

Your own choice to eat breakfast srug

I have to eat breakfast, else I'll start getting faint around third period.

....been scientifically proven that MOST thin people eat a breakfast every morning.

I always have a slimfast and a yogurt. That probably does not count as a good breakfast.

I miss waking up at 1PM, rolling out of bed and onto a 12-pack of beer.

Originally posted by botankus
I miss waking up at 1PM, rolling out of bed and onto a 12-pack of beer.

Those were the days. 🙂

Originally posted by botankus
I miss waking up at 1PM, rolling out of bed and onto a 12-pack of beer.

The question is: empty or full ones? 😈

Either response is bad. 😆

I never eat breakfast.

Originally posted by Council#13
I used to skip breakfast for an additional half-hour of sleep 😬

Me too, that and I'm very rarely hungry before early afternoon.

If I do eat before 2pm, it's usually me drinking a coffee and picking apart a bagel or something while in class.

Originally posted by botankus
I miss waking up at 1PM, rolling out of bed and onto a 12-pack of beer.

damn, that sounds painful

Part of the preimse behind eating the break-fast is that it encourages more even distrubtion of calories in the day. (from a nutritional standpoint I mean.)

Eating breakfast can help with afternoon binge eating, and low energy in the morning.

Also I was going to add if you're going to skip a meal go for dinner its when most people over eat anyway as opposed to breakfast.

I always eat breakfast.

Skipping it messes with your blood sugar.

I have no schedule, normally I take lunch as breakfast after I wake up some time around 10am-12pm. And what I have for lunch can also fit into the category of breakfast.

it is good to keep a maintained eating schedule, that way your body knows what to do with what you take in so it doesn't freak out about whether it should completely digest something or transfer it to fat