I’m tired of the ‘breakfast buzz’ – every breakfast article finds that eating first thing is essential. Fact is, much ‘breakfast research’ is done by groups that have a lot invested in the “Eat Breakfast like a King” theory.
So it’s hardly surprising that researchers comes to the same conclusions. It’s called ‘research bias.’ Researchers design their hypothesis and questions to inevitably prove their hypothesis true.
Let’s look at each of the claims:
1. It kick-starts your metabolism
This implies our metabolism has stopped. Unless you’re dead, this is untrue. Our basal metabolism keeps going 24/7. It’s the energy our body consumes keeping our essential bodily functions going -breathing, digesting, excreting etc…
2. You won’t be able to concentrate without it
Plenty of people who don’t eat until they get hungry in the mornings tell me their concentration isn’t impaired at all. Water and exercise help mental agility as does oxygen. But breakfast researchers don’t ask questions about water consumption or exercise. It wouldn’t fit their hypothesis.
3. You won’t have energy
My body only wants food between 10-11am, so I only eat then. Yet, I have tons of energy having only had a large glass of lemon water and a brisk walk/jog. But let me eat a highly processed, refined and sugary breakfast cereal – and I’m lethargic and even sleepy.
4. You’ll have problems with your blood sugar
If you suffer with problems of blood sugar regulation -your body will let you know that. It’s an amazing biological masterpiece, constantly letting you know what’s going on with it. While some people may have blood sugar fluctuations if they don’t eat first thing in the morning, the vast majority don’t.
5. You’ll be starving
Notice how your eating pattern changes over the weekends or on holiday. Do you eat later than usual? Could that be because your body only gets hungry later?
6. You’ll struggle to maintain your weight
Well yes, if you don’t honor your body and eat whenever it tells you it is hungry you will most likely have a battle with the bulge. When I ate breakfast before I was hungry I still found myself getting hungry around 10-11am. And so I’d then land up eating twice. But when I eat my first meal of the day only when I am hungry and when I then eat whenever I am hungry thereafter, I eat in a way that maintains my weight just fine.
And when I do skip my hunger – and note I didn’t say when I skip breakfast – THEN I land up eating uncontrollably later in the afternoon. So it doesn’t surprise me that breakfast research shows that if you skip breakfast (by which they mean you don’t eat at all any time in the morning) you gain weight.
The Last Word
I’m not disputing whether to ‘break-the-fast’ … all I’m disputing is
a) Our unquestioning belief in breakfast research.
b) When we eat breakfast.
I don’t believe in eating when I’m not hungry, nor does it fit my body clock (see more about this). But when I eat according to my body’s needs I have plenty of energy and concentration, I’m never hungry and maintaining my weight or blood sugar levels is simply no problem.
Sometimes research ‘sounds right’ because we’ve heard it so often that we never stop to question if it is all true for us personally. But when it comes to what I believe – I’m afraid my body, and not breakfast research, is king!
Written by Cari Corbet-Owen, clinical psychologist and author of Mind over Fatter and The Joy-Filled Body.
I think every human body has the character of each, would be better if you eat breakfast because after less than 6 hours of our stomach empty, the body need glucose to do actifity. good for the digestive organs and body.all about diet
THANK YOU! YOU ARE MY HERO! My parents make me eat breakfast before school when I really am not hungry, and I’ve found I get even hungrier during school when I DO eat it (and we have to eat at the assigned time; no choosing when we want to eat). It doesn’t affect my grades (straight A’s-even without breakfast), and I eat the same amount of food at lunch. I’ve tried to tell them this, but they won’t listen. Besides, I have gym in the morning and always drink a lot of water, which is just as good as eating breakfast. I have no more trouble concentrating than I do when I eat breakfast. If anything, it stimulates hunger, and then I’m more likely to be thinking about what vile thing is for lunch. So thank you for this!
I dont think its a realistic diet by any means, so boring and totally unsustainable! Yes you may lose weight but what happens at the end of the diet? Just read an interesting article on the topic in EatMe magazine, http://www.eatmemagazine.com
The more I think of dieting the more I feel hungry no idea why? Do anyone feel so?
Nowadays eating is related to weight maintenance (weight loss). I don’t know why everybody skips breakfast to lose weight! Never, eat food but good food. Regular eating habits will help you to maintain good health.
Breakfast is important to get going throughout the day. I have a big breakfast and lower my portions throughout the day. I’ve been able to maintain ideal weight for years.
It seems to me that hunter-gatherers wouldn’t necessarily have regular meals, least of all breakfast lying around waiting to be eaten upon waking, so it would seem odd to me if it WERE crucially important to optimal health or fitness. But I’m no anthropologist.
I rarely, if ever, eat breakfast. I’m an athlete who almost always works out in the morning. I can’t workout with food in my stomach. That’s just the way my body works. Apparently, I digest food slowly. So I’ve actually learned to workout with little or no food in my system.
When I was a competitive cyclist, I only ate breakfast on days that I raced, never on days when I was just training (unless I knew I was doing more than 50 miles that day).
Now I surf and I cannot tolerate food in my stomach at all. It’s probably because surfing is a sport which involves lying on your stomach. But even on the days when I do nothing more than lift weights, I still don’t eat breakfast. I don’t want food early. I don’t know if it’s because my body just doesn’t need it or because my body adapted to decades without breakfast.
Nevertheless, I’m still fit and trim at 44.
I have to disagree with the conclusions of this blog. I have written a blog in response to comments made by the author. My blog can be seen here:
http://blogs.proclub.com/blogs/2020insights/archive/2008/04/15/the-most-important-meal-of-the-day.aspx
I really think if you are interested in “kick-starting your metabolism,” it would be a better idea to concentrate on your voluntary skeletal muscles rather than “working out” your involuntary smooth muscles
Hi Cari,
Thanks for your response. Yes – it is an interesting debate! I think your example of different hunger levels of children is a good comprimise.
Are you suggesting that eating breakfast is a cultural thing? I would suggest that nowadays it is almost counter-culture. I agree with the “body-based” eating idea, however we have greatly mistaken “hunger” for “appetite” and this has in part lead to a society of overeating. Further, body-based eating a great way to go, but sometimes our bodies need the food even if we don’t feel like it. A good example is the post-workout meal. In this case, hunger is often the very last sensation we feel, and yet this is the window where are bodies most need the replenishment.
I think it is prudent to eat something – even if it is something very small for breakfast. In my experience, those who don’t eat breakfast are usually quite tired and lathargic in the mornings and need coffee just to get them functional.
I also think we need to examine WHY people aren’t eating breakfast. Many believe that this will prevent them from losing weight. I think THIS is the prevailing problem moreso than people trying to cram something down their throats to fit the the “culture”. And for the studies out there showing the benefits of children eating a good breakfast – I’m glad this is part of our culture.
I think it’s an interesting idea, but I don’t see encouraging breakfast eating as a negative thing.
I think some of the points here are a bit off the mark. For one thing, “kick-starting your metabolism” doesn’t imply you’re dead, it implies your metabolism is sluggish after a night’s sleep and could use a little fuel. Also, breakfast doesn’t have to be consumed at the crack of dawn, nor does it need to be a bowl of refined carbs. I think the point of the study is that, for most people, three meals a day keep energy levels consistent and, therefore, overall food consumption under control. I’m one of those people who need breakfast–I had a soft-boiled egg on wheat toast and a cup of coffee around 8 this morning, and I still feel full and energetic. Everyone has different needs, but I think it’s foolish to see this study as some kind of cereal company kabal. It’s just something to keep in mind when reevaluating your eating habits.
Finally, someone’s said it! I stopped eating breakfast around the eighth grade (I’m 49) and never had much of a problem keeping my weight stable, if about 5-10 lbs. overweight. I kept reading, though, that breakfast was essential, so I decided to force myself for a while to see if I could lose those last few pounds. Big mistake! I gained and kept gaining because I, too, would eat again when I was really hungry. I’ve finally wised up, and I don’t eat until I’m hungry. I’ve lost 47 lbs. and I’m still losing, without feeling like I’m missing a thing.
I haven’t heard about the idea of selling more bacon, but I know when boxed cereals were invented there was a lot of wacky marketing going on to push them as the elixer of health, and I imagine they too put on a big push to promote breakfast.
I don’t know that much is changed, look at all the advertising focus on special k products which are all pretty much carbo-crap in a box. And lots of people buy into it.
Hi Mike – thanks this is a really valuable post… I think there is so much commercialism in food that us consumers wouldn’t ever know about! I know that for myself my biggest single ‘rule’ about food is: “How unprocessed is it?” It’s not that I don’t ever eat anything that comes out of a box, or comes in a can – but a good 90% of my food is a close to ‘real’ food as possible.
Cari
Thanks Tanya – I love your last sentance – that’s it in a nutshell!
Caru
Susan – I have to agree with you on this. The later I eat and the heavier the meal – the more ravenous I am when I wake it. It’s almost as if I’ve put my body clock out of whack.
Cari
I read something recently that claimed that the notion of the traditional American breakfast was a PR push back in the early 20th century to sell more bacon. Before that we usually just had coffee and toast / bread product, more like a traditional European breakfast. Personally I have a happy medium, usually a roll with some cheese for protein.
I completely disagree. Never in my entire life have I associated particular times with food. If anything, it’s the opposite. I was always distracted by something else more *interesting* to do than food.
I can remember my mother trying to get me to eat oatmeal (which I hated), while I was only interested in getting to a horseback riding lesson.
I grew up NOT feeling hungry at breakfast time. Trouble was, by not eating then, by skipping lunch as well (still NOT hungry) and not eating until late afternoon, when I finally DID feel hungry, then I gorged, ate too much and often was so hungry that I’d eat whatever was convenient and fast… which usually isn’t the healthiest option.
I always found it easy to fast or do without food if needed. And got fatter and fatter, because when I did remember food, I’d be famished and overeat.
It was not a case of justifying the extra food because of a missed meal so much as simply being ravenous! I literally could, at those times, eat like a 6’10″ football player and not feel stuffed after either.
It’s only in the past year and a half, where I’ve been eating breakfast, hungry or not and eating regular meals (5 per day), hungry or not, that I’ve actually started to lose my weight and keep it off.
So, I’ll stick with what works.
Two comments.
I think the eat breakfast thing for kids is based on a study where they took two sets of kids from homes where there was little supervision including providing breakfast. Half the kids were given breakfast every day. The ones that got breakfast did a lot better in school, so this was held up as a reason for giving kids breakfast. However, later it was suggested that it was not so much the breakfast, but that the kids who got the organized breakfast got much needed attention. So who knows.
One reason that eating breakfast may be good some who are trying to lose weight is that the missed meal can be used as justification for eating a lot later in the day. I have a friend who has a major weight problem. He does not eat breakfast, and has a reasonable lunch. Before, or at dinner he will always justify eating some “extra” food because he did not eat breakfast. The “extra” food often has more calories than a healthy breakfast and it means he consumes most of that days’ calories in one meal before he goes to bed.
There is no one way of looking at things including taking breakfast. You go by your body needs and call. If breakfast is something you need to take in order to jump start, that itself is a call. When I was young I care less about taking breakfast but now that I am much older, I know the reasons. This works extremely well for me.
That makes sense to me. If you get up at 4 am and eat for the first time at 7:30-8:00, that’s not really any different than getting up at 7 and eating your first meal at 11 or so. So maybe that IS why Americans are used to the whole big breakfast of eggs/pancakes/bacon/etc. while Europeans eat a much lighter morning meal. The problem with Americans eating a huge breakfast is, well, I don’t know too many dairy farmers still out there, but a lot of people still eat like one!