{"id":33788,"date":"2013-10-14T20:43:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T20:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=33788"},"modified":"2017-04-27T08:23:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:23:50","slug":"eat-breakfast-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Did You Eat Breakfast Today?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pancakes\"<\/a>A few weeks ago, a study was publicized that had me very surprised.\u00a0 It was published in various media outlets with the claim that it might be good for weight loss to skip breakfast.\u00a0 This contradicts almost all studies done over the last 20 years and it definitely contradices the advise I have been giving to clients that they must eat breakfast and it may very well be the most important meal of the day.\u00a0 So have I been wrong in my advice?\u00a0 Not quite.\u00a0 As usual, headlines in media outlets don\u2019t always give an accurate picture of research.\u00a0 And as I suspected, this was a small study done over a short period of time and really means nothing at all.\u00a0 And yes, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t eat breakfast, you are in the majority.\u00a0 We live in a very fast paced society where pressures of being on time for work or school don\u2019t allow a lot of leeway for sleeping a few minutes more in the morning.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThe average American skips breakfast,\u201d says Constance Brown-Riggs, MSEd, RD, CDE, CDN, registered dietitian, and certified diabetes educator. \u201cYou\u2019re skipping breakfast and oftentimes you skip lunch as well, so by the time you do eat, you\u2019re ravenous and overeat.\u201d\u00a0 Skipping breakfast is harmful in many ways; 1) You most likely will end up overeating by the day\u2019s end. 2) You will lack energy most of the day 3) You are more likely to become a type two diabetic and 4) Your cognitive brain function will be diminished making you less productive.<\/p>\n

What happens when you don\u2019t eat breakfast?\u00a0 As its name implies, the purpose of breakfast is to break the fast between dinner and lunch. Here\u2019s what happens when you don\u2019t eat a morning meal: Your body enters into a prolonged fasting state. It starts to believe that you won\u2019t be eating any time soon. When you finally eat lunch, your body stores it as fat because it thinks, \u201cI\u2019d better save this for later. I don\u2019t know when the next meal will come.\u201d That, of course, leads to weight gain. When you break the fast in the morning, on the other hand, your body can use that food to power you through the day.<\/p>\n

Aside from kicking your body into gear and keeping hunger at bay, why should you bother with breakfast? \u201cThe research shows that, without a doubt, students do better in school with breakfast,\u201d says Brown-Riggs. \u201cIt helps in terms of fitness.\u201d It affects the mind, too: Breakfast eaters are more productive at work, have better problem-solving skills, and increased mental clarity.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but people who eat breakfast tend to have a healthier diet overall. \u201cWe know, when we look at the characteristics of individuals who are breakfast skippers, that they get inadequate amounts of fruits and vegetables,\u201d says Heather Leidy, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at the University of Missouri. \u201cThey are deficient in calcium and other minerals.\u201d On average, breakfast skippers snack more often, eat more sugary, high-fat snacks, drink more soda, are more likely to overeat at night, and are more often overweight or obese than breakfast eaters.<\/p>\n

Forgoing the first meal of the day actually tricks your brain into thinking you want higher-calorie foods — foods that can make you fat, or at least increase your risk for weight gain.
\nA team from Imperial College London presented the news at the Endocrine Society’s 91st annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The researchers used a scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at how feeding behaviors affected the brain’s “reward” center, which plays a role in pleasures and the body’s response to them.<\/p>\n

Functional MRI allows doctors to look at how blood flow increases in response to brain activity.<\/p>\n

The study involved 20 healthy, non-obese people. They skipped breakfast before the fMRI exam. During the test, they looked at random photos of high- and low-calorie foods. The high-calorie foods included pizza, cake, and chocolate. The healthier options included vegetables, fish, and salad.\u00a0 The brain’s reward center lit up more vividly, or became more active, when the person saw a high-calorie food as opposed to a low-calorie choice. (The taste and smell of food can also activate the brain’s reward center.)<\/p>\n

However, when the participants ate breakfast and had the same test repeated 90 minutes after eating breakfast, the brain’s reward center did not show any significantly greater activity when shown the high-calorie photos.<\/p>\n

The study participants also rated how appealing they found each food picture. When skipping breakfast, high-calorie foods topped the list of favorites. After eating, however, the group did not show a strong preference for the calorie-laden foods. Their choices corresponded with the MRI findings.\u00a0 Breakfast has long been touted as the most important meal of the day, and researchers say their findings add credibility to what we have been saying almost forever.\u00a0 “Our results support the advice for eating a healthy breakfast as part of the dietary prevention and treatment of obesity,” Tony Goldstone, MD, PhD, a consultant endocrinologist with the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London, says in a statement. “When people skip meals, especially breakfast, changes in brain activity in response to food may hinder weight and even promote weight gain.”<\/p>\n

A 2012 study by Keith A. Wesnes Claire Pincock and, Andrew Scholey in England showed just how important eating breakfast is for school-age children.\u00a0 In this study, 1386 children aged between 6 and 16 years, from schools throughout the UK, answered a number of questions daily concerning their food and drink consumption that day and performed cognitive tests of attention and episodic memory. Children who had had breakfast showed superior performance on tests of attention and memory, confirming a previous laboratory based study using the same cognitive tests. This study adds weight (no pun intended) to the growing body of literature indicating that breakfast plays a positive role in maintaining cognitive function during the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We always seem too busy to do the things that we need to in order to take care of our health.\u00a0 We are too busy to exercise, too busy deal with our stress and too busy to prepare the foods that are good for us.\u00a0 Now we are even too busy to eat the most important meal of the day in our schedule.\u00a0 MAKE THE CHANGE AND SCHEDULE YOUR BREAKFAST!\u00a0 And just like any other meal, make healthful choices and include whole grains and lean proteins and some vegetables too.\u00a0 If you are using whole-grain, low sugar cereals for breakfast, add some low-fat milk as a protein and perhaps some raisins or bananas or berries as a fruit and you will have a lot of energy to start your day. Remember, this is the first of 3 meals and 2 or three snacks that you should be eating daily, in proper portion amounts.<\/p>\n

Eating a proper breakfast each day will, \u201cadd hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.\u201d<\/i><\/b> \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Alan Freishtat<\/strong> is an A.C.E. CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER and a BEHAVIORAL CHANGE and WELLNESS COACH with over 19 years of professional experience. Alan is the creator and director of the \u201c10 Weeks to Health\u201d program for weight loss. He is available for private coaching sessions, consultations, assessments and personalized workout programs both in his office and by telephone and skype. Alan also lectures and gives seminars and workshops. He can be reached at\u00a002-651-8502<\/a> or 050-555-7175<\/a>, or by email at\u00a0alan@alanfitness.com<\/a> Check out the his web site \u2013www.alanfitness.com<\/a> US Line: 516-568-5027<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is no secret: eating breakfast can be the key to shedding unwanted pounds and living a more healthy lifestyle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":33789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-health","category-physical-health"],"yoast_head":"\nDid You Eat Breakfast Today? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did You Eat Breakfast Today? - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is no secret: eating breakfast can be the key to shedding unwanted pounds and living a more healthy lifestyle.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-14T20:43:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-04-27T13:23:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/iStock_000005730213XSmall.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"424\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"283\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alan Freishtat\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alan Freishtat\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/\",\"name\":\"Did You Eat Breakfast Today? - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/iStock_000005730213XSmall.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-10-14T20:43:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-04-27T13:23:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/f1abe9e48d32d5a2a473e32020a2317f\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/eat-breakfast-today\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/iStock_000005730213XSmall.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/iStock_000005730213XSmall.jpg\",\"width\":424,\"height\":283},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/f1abe9e48d32d5a2a473e32020a2317f\",\"name\":\"Alan Freishtat\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Alan-Freishtat_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Alan-Freishtat_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Alan Freishtat\"},\"description\":\"Alan Freishtat is an A.C.E. 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