Confessions of a breakfast skipper

Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling As a doctor and a parent, I feel a certain obligation to model healthy behaviors. Even if I were neither, I’d do my best to make healthy choices. And, mostly, I do. I exercise regularly, I pay attention to what I eat and I try to eat reasonable portions of healthy foods. But I regularly break a cardinal rule of healthy living: I skip breakfast. Is that so wrong? Apparently, most people think so. Ask anyone and my guess is that you’ll hear this a lot: “Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” And it makes some sense. When you get up in the morning you’ve probably just endured the longest period of fasting for the day. And that’s probably true even if you’re a late night snacker (like me). But, a new study suggests that skipping breakfast may not be as bad for you as commonly believed. Researchers enrolled healthy kids, ages 8 to 10, and repeatedly measured attention, impulsiveness, memory, verbal learning, and speed of processing information. For each of these measures, the kids did no better (or worse) on the days they ate breakfast compared to the days they didn’t. Of course, this study only assessed the short-term impact of breakfast on healthy school-age kids. The findings could have been quite different if it included “habitual breakfast skippers,” adults, or people who don’t get adequate nutrition. What about past research? Several past studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of ea...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Diet and Weight Loss Health Healthy Eating Source Type: blogs